Q&A with the Boss: The Garage's Pranam Ben talks about BioReference partnership and what it means for you

On September 19, we announced that The Garage had formed a national partnership with BioReference Laboratories, an OPKO Health company and one of the largest commercial laboratories in the United States. This partnership, however, is more than just a mutually beneficial agreement between our two companies. Combining BioReference's nationally respected laboratory testing and related services with our advanced population health management platform will deliver numerous quality and efficiency benefits to provider organizations, as well.

For a closer look, we spoke with our founder and CEO Pranam Ben about the new partnership's short- and long-term impact and the opportunities this brings to providers and patients.

Q: Why is The Garage's partnership with BioReference important to providers?

Pranam: For our customers, this partnership is important in two ways. The immediate impact is that they will now have real-time, automated access to the results of all the tests they order through BioReference. The longer-term impact is that this lab data, combined with the other information we're able to capture through our platform, helps deliver unparalleled insight into their patients' health status. BioReference customers, on the other hand, will be offered an exclusive opportunity to implement our pop health platform, so that they too can experience those benefits. With data and tools from both companies, new and existing customers will receive insight to help manage requirements for value-based care programs so they can improve risk scores, reduce their costs and deliver better care for individuals as well as populations over the long-term.

Q: Could you share an example of one of those immediate benefits?

Pranam: Sure. As all providers know, value-based care programs, such as ACOs, require reporting quality measures. A significant portion of those quality metrics are lab-based. Thanks to our partnership with BioReference, those lab-based metrics will be automatically captured, normalized, analyzed and presented on our platform so providers can see at a glance how they are performing on those particular measures and also predict future compliance requirements. That level of real-time insight will help providers drive continued performance improvement at different points of care and achieve value-based care quality and reimbursement goals.

Q: Why are such partnerships important for the healthcare industry?

Pranam: Healthcare is local, but the challenges and opportunities are universal. That means the future of healthcare is building a living, breathing intelligent ecosystem where all stakeholders benefit, especially patients. By affiliating with companies such as BioReference, but also with organizations from across all segments of the care continuum, we can build the most comprehensive data set possible. When those resources are combined with our cloud-based analytic and care-management tools, providers can more efficiently stratify risk and deliver the high-quality care that yields stronger financial performance under value-based payment models.

Q: Where can providers get a sneak peek at this partnership in action?

We will be exploring this partnership and its impact in much greater detail during several special events we're hosting at the National Association of ACO's (NAACOS) Fall 2017 Conference on October 5 and 6 in Washington, D.C. The event I'm personally most excited about is our sponsored breakfast at the event (on October 6 at 7:30 a.m. in Foyer 2), where we'll explore what it takes to be a high-performing ACO and more. It's going to be an educational and exciting event, so I hope to see lots of new and familiar faces there!