Nancy Lane, Ph.D., has joined Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) as senior vice president for Population Health Management.
Lane’s responsibilities include oversight of the creation of systems and programs necessary to successfully manage the quality and cost of health care delivery under population-based reimbursement models where VUMC will be paid based on how well it manages the overall health of populations of patients served by both VUMC and through the Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network (VHAN).
“I’m thrilled to join the leadership team at Vanderbilt, working together to achieve Vanderbilt’s mission of providing the best care and improving the health of all we touch,” said Lane, who reports to C. Wright Pinson, MBA, M.D., deputy vice chancellor for Health Affairs and CEO of the Vanderbilt Health System, and David Posch, CEO of Vanderbilt University Hospital and Clinics.
“With the federal government signaling that population-based reimbursement is on the horizon, it is vitally important for us to expand our efforts to adapt to what will be a sizeable change in the way we are currently reimbursed for the clinical services we provide,” Pinson said.
“We are delighted that Dr. Lane has joined us to help lead these efforts. Her experience implementing large-scale programs and services to manage health care across populations will be of great benefit as we work to establish these systems for VUMC and VHAN.”
Prior to joining Vanderbilt, Lane worked for 18 years with ValueOptions, the country’s largest privately owned behavioral health and wellness organization. Most recently, she was chief executive officer of the company’s Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership (MBHP), which manages publicly funded mental health, substance abuse and integrated care management services for more than 400,000 members across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
In this position, she worked extensively with state agencies, providers, consumers and advocates in implementing new services and programs. In 2011, she led MBHP’s efforts to successfully win a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation grant, which funded the development and testing of a program that included a new type of recovery peer navigator and the use of incentives in treating addiction.
Prior to 1997, Lane served in leadership positions for several managed care organizations, including CNR Health and American Psych Management (a predecessor firm to ValueOptions).
A licensed psychologist, Lane received her Ph.D. and M.S. in Clinical Psychology from Rutgers University and her B.A. from Macalester College.
“Nancy brings a wealth of experience and knowledge of approaches to Population Medicine to improve the quality and cost outcomes for patients, while creating good infrastructures for clinicians to achieve these results,” Posch said.
“I’m here to help Vanderbilt get where it wants to go,” Lane said. “By focusing on populations, as opposed to individuals, Vanderbilt is emerging as a leader in the way health care is evolving and changing in the U.S. Part of my role will be to coordinate things that happen here with VHAN and to work on the new payment structures that are increasingly determining the direction of health care (bundled payments, shared savings, risk arrangements).”
Lane said that she has spent her first months here analyzing VUMC’s multi-faceted contracts with payors to help determine how to maximize their value.
“These contracts are a first step toward operating in a value-based payment environment and can work together with the system-wide efforts going on throughout Vanderbilt to streamline operations to improve value and outcomes,” she said.
“Vanderbilt has the programs and skills to succeed in this changing environment. It’s important to make sure everything works together. Expanding our focus to include the health needs and desires of the communities served by VUMC and VHAN will change the ways we approach health care. We’ll be looking at how people get care over extended periods of time and in a multitude of settings, not just in the hospital or clinic,” Lane said.
“This is one of the most exciting developments in health care, and VUMC and VHAN are ready to take on these challenges.”
Lane said she was attracted to Vanderbilt because of its clinical reputation and also for its strong research programs. “As health care continues to change, there is a special role for academic medical centers in terms of their expertise in conducting and disseminating research on both the practice and system-wide delivery of health care.
“I expect Vanderbilt to become one of the country’s leaders in these new approaches.”
