Rise was founded on a transformative vision of health care delivery. In creating Rise, we responded to a call from the marketplace to lower the medial cost burden on individuals and employers. We also responded to the concern that patients could not always get care in the right place, at the right time — some unable to identify primary care resources to meet their needs, while others waited weeks for appointments or relied on emergency rooms to get the care they need. In crafting our approach, we:

• Reviewed the evidence and lessons learned from traditional approaches to disease management — in which efforts to manage populations with chronic diseases and complex acute needs were not as effective as they might have been.
• Watched as Massachusetts offered a lesson in how reform initiatives demand improved efficiency in the delivery of primary care services, and studied data that shows what happens when that demand is not met.
• Heard from physicians all over the country who struggled with meeting the demands of their patients while trying to maintain some semblance of work-life balance.
• Watched patient centered medical home demonstrations that only addressed small subsets of physician patients and were often too expensive to be widely replicated.
• Read the public comments and testimony regarding Accountable Care Organizations and similar proposals and assessed the technological and human resource commitments required. But these investments were often out reach for all but the best capitalized organizations.
• Watched the market deliver piecemeal solutions rather than holistic, integrated and truly patient centered solutions.

So we created a company that integrates the best of these lessons, including:

• A holistic approach to patient centered, value oriented care
• New care team members that can efficiently and effectively integrate with a primary care practice to enhance rather than interfere with the relationship between patients and physicians
• Technology that supports this care team as part of an integrated care process.