FAST FACTS

• Responsible for building, leading, collaborating, and aligning multiple key healthcare stakeholders to drive innovative and systemic improvements to health status and healthcare delivery.

• Executive Committee and Board Member, National Alliance for Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions and Caregiver Representative, Norton Healthcare Patient Advisory Board.

• Primary caregiver for her mother for the last ten years.

• Enjoys traveling, camping, listening to podcasts, watching movies, debating politics and hanging out with husband, sons, family and friends.

• Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Communication from Indiana State University; Master’s in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Middle Tennessee State University.

• 2019 Hosparus Health Leadership in Healthcare MediStar Nominee

Medical News: How have you made a difference in our healthcare community?

Randa Deaton: The Kentuckiana Health Collaborative (KHC) identified the opioid epidemic as a key issue for our community and recognized the need for employers to become solution partners in addressing the greatest health crisis of our generation.

We convened an expert team to develop best practice recommendations for employers to optimize their healthcare benefits and workplace policies to prevent, treat, and support the recovery for opioid misuse and disorder. We are now convening a cohort of employers that represents 23 percent of the Kentuckians with employer-sponsored insurance.

Together, this cohort will learn from one another how to take these recommendations and implement them back into their businesses. The changes employers can make to prevent the devastating financial, social and health outcomes that this chronic brain disease has on workers and families can make a significant different in the health of our community.

MN: Describe a specific result driven by your work.

RD: Most people agree that the greatest issue facing our country is getting access to high quality and affordable healthcare. Transparency is one of the keys to addressing healthcare quality and cost, and citizens can see the quality of care of their primary care providers in Greater Louisville from our quality reporting work.

This year, the KHC also participated in the RAND Hospital Price Transparency Study that made national news and compared commercial hospital prices relative to a Medicare. The results were shocking with commercial insurance paying a national average of 241 percent of what Medicare pays for the same services; Kentucky fared better at a relative price of 186 percent. The study sparked a lively conversation around the quality, safety and affordability of hospital services.

The KHC continues to facilitate that dialogue among employers, providers and plans. These conversations seek to help the various stakeholders to create a safe environment for candid dialogue on how we can collaborate to make healthcare more affordable and safer with better health outcomes.

MN: How are you paving the way for future leaders?

RD: The KHC staff actively facilitate collaborative solutions to healthcare problems that include the perspectives of all the key stakeholders, including payers, providers, purchasers, policymakers, and patients. Our work is to inspire what is possible if we work together as a community.

To pave the way for future leaders, I must plant the seeds of possibility early and nourish them to see what sprouts and eventually grows into something as grand as creating a core healthcare measures set in Kentucky or publicly sharing quality and cost data not previously available to the public.

Healthcare is slow to change and requires a foundation of trusted relationships and patience by our future leaders to move forward in innovative and collaborative paths forward.

MN: Looking back on the past year, how has the healthcare system changed and what is the medical community doing to adapt?

RD: In 2019, healthcare purchasers (employers) have become more engaged in influencing the healthcare system in our community. As a result, there has been greater effort to move the healthcare system toward value-based care. Greater Louisville and Kentucky have been slow to adopt payment reform models aimed at driving improved quality, cost and patient experience. I expect to see greater movement to these new models in our market next year and beyond with healthcare value becoming a key priority for healthcare purchasers.