IOM: Science, Technology Key To Fixing U.S. Health Care System

Wed Sep 12 14:33:42 PDT 2012

September 07, 2012

California Healthline

Advances in science and technology have the potential to help address the U.S. health care system's inefficiencies, high costs and poor quality, according to a report released Thursday by the Institute of Medicine, Modern Healthcare reports.
For the report, an 18-member panel of experts identified challenges facing the health care system and provided recommendations for improvement (McKinney, Modern Healthcare, 9/6). 
U.S. Health System Inefficiencies, Challenges
During a live Webcast of the IOM report release on Thursday, Mark Smith -- CEO of the California HealthCare Foundation and chair of the committee -- said the U.S. health care system's two main challenges are cost and complexity.
CHCF publishes California Healthline.
The report noted that about 30% of health spending in 2009, or about $750 billion, was wasted on unnecessary services, excessive administrative costs, fraud and other problems. In addition, about 75,000 patient deaths could have been prevented in 2005 if every state had delivered health care at the quality level of the best-performing state, according to one estimate (McCann, Healthcare IT News, 9/6).
Report Recommendations
The report concluded, "The traditional systems for transmitting new knowledge -- the ways clinicians are educated, deployed, rewarded, and updated -- can no longer keep pace with scientific advances. If unaddressed, the current shortfalls in the performance of the nation's healthcare system will deepen on both quality and cost dimensions, challenging the well-being of Americans now and potentially far into the future" (Modern Healthcare, 9/6).
The report offered the following 10 recommendations for improving the U.S. health care system, including:
• Broad Leadership: "Expand commitment to the goals of a continuously learning health care system."
• Care Continuity: "Improve care coordination and communication within and across organizations."
• Clinical Decision Support: "Accelerate integration of the best clinical knowledge into care decision."
• Community Links: "Promote community-clinical partnerships and services aimed at managing and improving health at the community level."
• Data Utility: "Streamline and revise research regulations to improve care, promote the capture of clinical data and generate knowledge."
• Digital Infrastructure: "Improve the capacity to capture clinical, care delivery process and financial data for better care, system improvement and the generation of new knowledge."
• Financial Incentives: "Structure payment to reward continuous learning and improvement in the provision of best care at lower cost."
• Optimized Operations: "Continuously improve health care operations to reduce waste, streamline care delivery and focus on activities that improve patient health."
• Patient-Centered Care: "Involve patients and families in decisions regarding health and health care, tailored to fit their preferences."
• Performance Transparency: "Increase transparency on health care system performance" (IOM report, 9/6).
The panel calls for leveraging health information technology to meet many of the goals outlined in the report (Alonso-Zaldivar, AP/Austin American-Statesman, 9/6).

Bryan Sloane
Deputy Editor, CAL/AAEM News Service

Brian Potts MD, MBA
Managing Editor, CAL/AAEM News Service

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