Texas Health Resources Inc. and Healthways Inc. provided insight into one aspect of their 10-year strategic agreement to dramatically change not only the way people in North Texas access and receive health care, but also to fundamentally transform the way people think about their "health". Together, the two organizations will deploy their integrated physician-directed population health solution to drive health outcomes and cost savings through the newly created Texas Health accountable care organization (ACO) developed for a collaboration with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. Texas Health and Healthways envision that results should include an increase in the percentage of healthy people; a reduction in per capita health-related risk; lower incidence and prevalence of chronic illness; fewer complications from known chronic disease; lower morbidity; lower utilization of health care services; fewer hospital readmissions; lower medical cost; increased productivity and performance and extended life expectancy.

Results such as these are the ultimate objectives of the ACO model. The model also includes rewards to physicians for managing the underlying health and costs of their patient population as they move from the traditional fee-for-service approach to a fee-for-value payment model. Texas Health and Healthways expect to collaborate in designing and implementing additional commercial ACO models with other insurers in the North Texas market in the future.