As the United States grapples with a combination of unsustainable growth in health care costs and comparatively lackluster overall population health, Vanderbilt and other leading employers in the region are seeking to improve the value of health care services for their health plan beneficiaries.

Tucked in a data center in the basement of Vanderbilt University Hospital, a new computer the size of a large armoire, called a data warehouse appliance, is delivering a new order of speed to Vanderbilt clinical scientists as they search, filter, analyze and annotate the de-identified medical records of approximately 2 million patients.

The latest Credo Award and Five Pillar Leader Award winners were announced at this week’s Spring Clinical Enterprise Leadership Assembly at Langford Auditorium.

Over the next three years, Medicare will test a new payment arrangement that rewards participating hospitals when Medicare patients require fewer inpatient and post-discharge services, but extracts financial penalties when patients require more of these services.