As reported in various sources last week including the Washington Post, the Institutes of Medicine (IOM) recently convened a Committee to explore how health care practitioners and providers can learn from the central challenges facing health care today as a collaborative effort among participants in the first Multi-payer Advanced Primary Care Practice (MAPCP) Demonstration.
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In addition to revealing the staggering statistic that $750 billion was wastefully spent in the nation’s healthcare system last year, the report encapsulating the committee’s deliberations, Best Care at Lower Cost, identifies three major imperatives for change: the rising complexity of modern health care, unsustainable cost increases, and outcomes below the system’s potential. It also points out that emerging tools like computing power, connectivity, team-based care, and systems engineering techniques—tools that were previously unavailable—make their envisioned transition possible, and are already being put to successful use in pioneering health care organizations.
The committee envisions a continuously learning health system, one that aligns science and informatics, patient-clinician partnerships, incentives, and a culture of continuous improvement to produce the best care at lower cost. The report’s recommendations speak to the many stakeholders in the health care system and outline the concerted actions necessary across all sectors to achieve the needed transformation. PFCD is proud to say many of the recommendations are closely aligned with our own goals and we will continue working to bring them to fruition.
A full copy of the report and supporting documents can be found on the NIH website here: http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2012/Best-Care-at-Lower-Cost-The-Path-to-Continuously-Learning-Health-Care-in-America.aspx