The Challenges Of Developing A Sustainable Network For The Care Of The Chronically Ill

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series of several posts related to the 4th European Forum on Health Policy and Management: Innovation & Implementation, held in Berlin, Germany on January 29 and 30, 2015. For updates on the Forum’s results please check the Center for Healthcare Management’s website or follow on Twitter @HCMatColumbia. Health care systems the world over are searching for new organizational models to deliver better clinical outcomes, improved customer satisfaction, and lower costs. In any such systems, quality will no longer be the sole province of clinicians and the responsibility for cost containment will no longer fall solely on payors. Increasingly, clinical care and social service providers, patients, and payors alike have a role to play in achieving the best clinical outcomes for patients and the best economic outcomes for the system as a whole, signifying a value based health delivery system. As primary and acute care networks embark on this move from volume to value, the special needs of chronic populations, those that comprise 45 percent of domestic health care spending — or $1.2 trillion annually, can easily be lost and, with them, the ability to address a very significant gap between quality outcomes and cost controls. We assert this failure is largely due to underlying system designs, focused on the healthy primary care population and episodic care for the large population of patients with acute needs. Systems designed to serve ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: All Categories Chronic Care Effectiveness Health Care Delivery Innovation Long-Term Care Technology Source Type: blogs