Summa Health Case Study

Specialty Pharmacy Partnership

Accelerates Patient-Centered Care
 About Summa Health
Summa Health is a patient-centered population health
management organization that has provided coordinated
care and a superior experience to millions of patients in
comprehensive acute, critical, emergency, outpatient and
long-term/home-care settings in Northeast Ohio. As one of
the largest integrated healthcare delivery systems in the state,
the nonprofit system encompasses a network of hospitals,
community-based health centers, a multi-specialty group
practice, a health plan and an accountable care organization.

SUMMA HEALTH AT A GLANCE

7,800+ employees

300+ physicians

30 specialties

12 community-based medical centers

4 hospitals

2 outpatient pharmacies

Case Study: Summa Health |

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Summa Health’s Specialty The Decision to Partner
Pharmacy Journey with Trellis Rx
Serving communities through clinical leadership is a To ensure leadership in specialty pharmacy care,
concept deeply rooted in Summa Health’s culture. Summa Health vetted its program development
options against three “must-have” requirements:
Entering 2018, Summa Health identified an
1. Speed-to-market
opportunity to enhance care for its patients who
2. Enhanced patient and provider experiences
required specialty medications. Navigating specialty
pharmacy had long created a burden for patients, 3. Clinical integration for population health

as well as the health system’s providers and staff. management

Patients received little support from external Although the health system considered building its
pharmacies, leaving many unable to afford and own specialty pharmacy service from the ground
adhere to their therapy regimens. At the same up, leadership recognized the significant expertise
time, care teams spent hours each week handling and investment this would entail. They understood
complicated approval processes, but lacked visibility that it often takes health systems many years to
into whether patients obtained their medications. launch and scale a successful specialty pharmacy
program, which would not support their speed-to-
Summa Health believed offering on-site specialty
market objective.
pharmacy services would enhance the patient
experience, reduce administrative burdens and drive Further, the inherent investment and risk involved
better clinical outcomes for the communities of in building a specialty pharmacy service worried
Northeast Ohio. By August 2018, the health system’s many Summa Health stakeholders. Some companies
leadership team was exploring how to deploy an in- offered to partially supplement Summa Health’s
house program. resources. However, only Trellis Rx supplied the

“Word travels quickly at Summa Health. Initial successes, buy-in, and physician engagement
with Trellis Rx generated so much goodwill that organic demand for clinically-integrated
specialty pharmacy rapidly exceeded our expectations.”

- Stuart Deal, PharmD

General Manager, Summa Health Specialty Pharmacy at Trellis Rx

Case Study: Summa Health |

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 clinical model, domain expertise, personnel, technology platform and
capital investment needed to rapidly build a best-in-class specialty
pharmacy service and accelerate positive impacts for patients and
providers across the health system. Trellis Rx’s unique performance-
based partnership approach also mitigated financial, operational
and other risk for Summa Health.

Trellis Rx committed to embed both pharmacists and

pharmacy liaisons into Summa Health’s clinics alongside
its providers under its brand. This high degree of clinical
integration would ensure patients received coordinated,
high-touch care and give providers the support they needed
to work at the top of their licenses. Ultimately, the Summa Health
leadership team believed Trellis Rx’s clinically-integrated care model
could enhance patient outcomes and advance its population health
management goals in a way an off-site, call center approach could not.

Trellis Rx’s emphasis on teamwork also aligned with Summa Health’s

culture. During the discovery period, the Trellis Rx team spent several
days on-site in collaborative discussions with all Summa Health
stakeholders, including clinic physicians, practice management
staff, pharmacy staff, the executive team and the executives from
SummaCare, Summa Health’s health plan. These conversations resulted
in enthusiastic endorsements from providers, staff and executives.

Together, Summa Health stakeholders quickly concluded that a

clinically-integrated partnership with Trellis Rx was the only option that
met all three “must-have” requirements.

SPEED-TO-MARKET FOR CLINICALLY-INTEGRATED CARE

Feb. 28 Summa Health and Trellis Rx initiate partnership
April 1 Summa Health Specialty Pharmacy launched in the first clinic
April 15 First patient supported in the Center for AIDS Research
and Education Center
April 30 Specialty pharmacy services embedded in four clinics
April 2020 Specialty pharmacy services expanded to 24 clinics

Case Study: Summa Health |

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Collaborative Education with the first patient supported on April
15. At a physician’s request, specialty pharmacy

Implementation services were embedded one week later in the

Infectious Disease clinic to help support hepatitis
Within two weeks of Summa Health’s contract C patients. By the end of April, four clinics were
approval on February 28, 2019, Trellis Rx’s Advance benefiting from clinically-integrated specialty
Team was on-site and leveraging best-in-class pharmacy services.
processes to stand up operations. They pulled
Any initial concerns care team members had about
all stakeholders together, carefully evaluated
relinquishing ownership of prior authorization and
workflows, got concerns out into the open and
other workflows quickly changed to satisfaction
designed a roadmap for optimizing specialty
about the decision, as the partnership with Trellis
pharmacy workflows. Although Trellis Rx brought
Rx allowed doctors and nurses to spend more time
standardized processes to the table, collaboration
on patient care with fewer administrative burdens.
with practice managers, providers and others
Even physicians who seldom voice approvals have
ensured workflows were adapted to meet the
lent their full support, generating rapid demand for
unique needs of each Summa Health clinic.
specialty pharmacy services throughout Summa
By April 1, Summa Health’s first specialty Health. With growing support from the health system
pharmacists and pharmacy liaisons began work in came demand for the specialty pharmacy care.
the health system’s Center for AIDS Research and Within the first year, services expanded to 24 clinics.

Summa Health + Trellis Rx: Partnership Results1

In its first two years, the Summa Health Specialty Pharmacy drove
significant benefits for patients, providers and the organization

PATIENT CLINICAL PROVIDER HEALTH SYSTEM

IMPACT IMPACT IMPACT IMPACT

100 91 94 Gained access to 2

Patient Net Average Provider Net payor networks
Promoter Score* proportion of Promoter Score* 146% increase in
days covered limited distribution
$5M 97%
Financial assistance drug revenue in
100% prior authorizations
secured for patients year two
Hepatitis C therapy submitted in <1 day
completion rate Achieved
3x faster revenue
100% growth compared
RA patients with to self-developed
completed RAPID-3 specialty pharmacies
assessment at leading academic
medical centers

Case Study: Summa Health |

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Patient and Provider
Satisfaction “Summa Health Specialty Pharmacy is
Through the partnership with Trellis Rx, Summa integrated directly into our office, with
Health is better able to fulfill its aspiration of “no access to all clinical documentation
patient left behind.” For example: The Summa Health and other information. Recently, for
Specialty Pharmacy has enabled the health system example, the pharmacist alerted me to a
to expand its financial assistance to help patients potential drug interaction issue. Before
who are unable to afford their medications. I even saw the patient, we were already
Furthermore, patients now speak directly with working together to switch him to a safer
pharmacists and pharmacy liaisons at Summa medication regimen. The result is greater
Health about their specialty prescriptions—even patient safety, plus efficiency for my
those not filled by the Summa Health Specialty nurses and myself. Everybody benefits.”
Pharmacy. That means patients know who will fill
their prescriptions, when their medications will be
- Amy Hite, M.D.
delivered and how much they will cost, all without
Director, Center for AIDS Research
enduring the headaches of dealing with a call
and Education, Summa Health
center. Regular follow-up by the specialty pharmacy
team ensures patients’ questions are answered and
therapies are optimized.

HOW THE PATIENT-PROVIDER-PHARMACIST PROCESS WORKS

BEFORE APPOINTMENT DURING APPOINTMENT BETWEEN APPOINTMENTS

EHR-integrated Arbor® Specialty pharmacy meets patient Arbor® triggers activities
software identifies patients to discuss therapies, identify between appointments based
who will benefit from specialty barriers to care and enroll them on patient’s condition and
pharmacy services, including in specialty pharmacy services. therapy. Pharmacy liaisons monitor
ones referred by providers. Pharmacy liaison facilitates for adherence and coordinate
Locally-embedded pharmacist prior authorization and secures refills. Pharmacists provide
and pharmacy liaison arrange financial assistance if needed, counseling and conduct patient
to meet patient during their while pharmacist conducts reported outcomes assessments
upcoming appointment. medication education and to monitor therapy effectiveness,
Pharmacy liaison proactively adherence counseling. Pharmacist triggering provider interventions
investigates benefits may support provider with if needed. Care team updated
and copay. therapeutic decision making. via EHR.

Case Study: Summa Health |

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The clinically-integrated specialty pharmacy effects of the partnership. In addition, the health
team also helps Summa Health providers ensure system’s leadership team enjoys the satisfaction
appropriate, effective therapy use by closely of knowing that their decision is advancing the
monitoring adherence and disease-specific organization’s patient-centered population health
outcomes. Arbor®, Trellis Rx’s EHR-integrated goals. In partnership with Trellis Rx, Summa Health
specialty pharmacy technology platform, not only will continue to lead the way toward a superior
supports consistent, evidence-based patient care, patient experience and healthier communities.
but also allows pharmacists to collect and report on
patient reported outcome measures and other key
clinical and operational results. Trellis Rx’s advanced
data collection and reporting infrastructure has been “We made the right call with Trellis Rx.
critical to Summa Health’s success gaining drug If I had to do it all over again, there’s no
manufacturer and payor access. doubt I’d do it the same way.”

- John Feucht, MBA, R.Ph.

To this day, open communication and collaboration
VP of Pharmacy Services,
continue to generate huge wins for patients and Summa Health System
providers. Letters from happy patients and accolades
from Summa Health providers testify to the positive

To learn more about how a partnership with Trellis Rx

will improve your patients’ specialty pharmacy care,
contact us today.

* Net Promoter Score is a standardized index used across industries to measure customers’ willingness to recommend a company’s products
or services to others. NPS gauges customers’ overall brand loyalty and satisfaction. The NPS scale ranges from -100 to 100 with scores over
70 considered world class.
1 DATA SOURCES
Zitter Patient Net Promoter Score Survey, Q1 2020 Fielding
Arbor® specialty pharmacy technology platform dashboards
Trellis Rx internal analysis using real-world data from customers and other health system specialty pharmacy programs
Limited distribution drug revenue growth based on dispense data from April 2020-April 2021

Case Study: Summa Health |

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 Website
www.trellisrx.com

Email
[email protected]

Phone
(800) 503-5420