Now Reading: Delivery System Reform: Action Steps and Pay-Per-Value Approaches

This is a white paper published on the Mayo Clinic Health Policy blog about approaches to delivery system reform, with a significant focus on reimbursement. I read it because I’m joining colleagues from Kaiser Permanente at the World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress (and if you’d like, you can hear a podcast of CEO George Halvosron here).

The reason I decided to post this paper on my blog is I think it’s an accessible (easy to read), basic and reasoned approach to changing the way we deliver care in our patients’ interest. It goes beyond medical home thinking (while including those principles) to include more aspects of care, including inpatient and outpatient care, and includes what I think is a pretty reasonable timeline for this happening.

There is a section on “Patient-Centered Use of Information Technology” that says information must be made available to “doctors and patients.” I think the people who read this blog and others can further flesh out the details of a fully accountable health care system. I also really liked the discussion of “Episode-Based Payments for Hospitalized Patients.” I think this would enhance care coordination, and I have seen the impact of hospital care reimbursement being isolated from the overall hospital care episode, which doesn’t end when the patient leaves the hospital.

Some of the recommendations are to be expected considering the organizations who provided the perspective, such as support for group medical practice. At the same time, I think the paper has good relevance and offers realistic ideas for all care environments, which is why I’m posting it here. It’s pretty manageable lengthwise, so I’d encourage others to read it and post their thoughts on it – do the ideas look reasonable/rational in whatever care system you work in/ get care from?

Here’s the link to the post on the Mayo Clinic Health Policy blog if you’d like to post your comments there (and feel free to post there instead of here)

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Ted Eytan, MD