ACO roundup: Key news from Feb. 24-March 1

The Daily Briefing editorial team rounds up the top accountable care stories of the week.

• California: Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach has partnered with Greater Newport Physicians and Blue Shield of California to form an ACO for 11,000 Blue Shield HMO policy holders. The three-year agreement will launch on July 1 and focus on long-term strategies for improving care quality and efficiency (Evans, Modern Healthcare, 2/27 [subscription required]; Adams, OC METRO Magazine, 2/27).

• Montana: The Frontier Medicine Better Health Partnership has applied for a $16 million CMS Innovation Challenge Grant to form an ACO that would connect Montana's 48 rural hospitals. Organizers say the ACO would develop patient data for the hospitals and allow them to purchase drugs as a group (Drake, Montana Watchdog, 2/22).

• Writing in iHealthBeat this week, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn explains how this year's Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference focused on "the market driver of health care payment moving from volume to value." She writes that accountable care will "compel health providers to undertake greater financial risk for managing population health" (Sarasohn-Kahn, iHealthBeat, 2/27).