ACOs on the Rise

You might have heard a lot about Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) lately. They’re not new; the concept has been around since at least 2006. But their popularity has increased recently due to their inclusion in the Affordable Care Act. As Medicare costs are expected to soar with the ever-greying American population, the model has been promoted as a more efficient and effective way to provide care.  

So far, the trend is catching on: groups of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers are forming networks to provide coordinated, high-quality care to the patients they serve. Both the improved outcomes and the cost-saving benefits are the result of the “coordinated” portion of that definition: using Electronic Health Records (EHRs) to centralize all of a patient’s information, every provider in an ACO network can be on the same page at the same time, which allows them to provide faster, better and more efficient care without the added costs of redundant and unnecessary tests.

The Foundation for a New Kind of Creative

As an agency with a hearty healthcare marketing practice, Switch is more than familiar with the ACO concept. The finer points of ACO mechanics got us thinking about how we operate ourselves; as it turns out, there are some striking parallels to the ACO model. Two similarities, in particular, serve as illustrative ways to communicate the benefits our organization offers clients.

1. Integration

Patients outside of an ACO purchase their healthcare piece by piece. The primary care physician they visit is separate from the specialists they see. This can lead to added costs and less efficient care with more opportunities for miscommunication and mistakes. Any single provider might be working with only a fraction of the complete perspective on a patient’s health.

Just like an Accountable Care Organization, Switch integrates everything a client needs within a single network. In our case, that network is a single building. From services such as experiential, digital and events, to internal resources that include everything from a fabrication studio, recording studio and dedicated staffing personnel – it all lives under the same roof. Owning everything we need creates better collaboration between teams, giving us more control over the entire process from concept to production. And that ultimately lets us provide much higher quality creative and production to the clients we serve.

2. Accountability

The “accountable” part of an Accountable Care Organization means that providers are jointly responsible for the health of their patients. This works through financial incentives. If an ACO can meet defined benchmarks in quality patient care — lower readmissions would be just one of these — while reducing costs through the elimination of unnecessary tests, they get to keep a portion of the savings.

As an agency, we are jointly responsible for the health of the brands we serve. But the benchmarks we seek to meet are ones we define together with our clients – ones informed by strategy and powerful insights. We value data and the stories it can reveal. Research and planning forms the foundation and shapes the success of everything we do. Through an intensive process of investigation, we learn everything we can about a target audience – their habits, preferences and motivations, along with psychographics, demographics, technographics and everything in between. Once a project is activated, we record and capture everything with measurable results for our clients — not awards won (although those are a nice bonus) — as our true goals.

New Perspective, Same Passion

Switch is an Accountable Creative Organization, with an integrated approach that delivers measurable results.  “But I thought they were all about Liberation?” … you might be thinking.  And we are.  Accountability is the “yin” to Liberation’s “yang.” One without the other is out of whack, either utterly untethered or unbearably boring. We seek that supreme balance – a perfect tension that yields ideas you can count on to work. Beautifully.

This concept of Switch as an Accountable Creative Organization isn’t new. It’s a different way of talking about who we are and what we can provide, using the context of the health care industry in which we’re heavily involved. Trends might come and go, but Switch’s approach to creative and dedication to our clients remain the same.

To learn more about Switch’s Accountable Creative Organization, please contact Annie Castellano at anniec@theswitch.us.