Posted on July 17, 2013
Media Contact:
Sonia Furtado, NEHI
617-225-0857 x220
sfurtado@nehi.net
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Rx FOR MOVING FROM A CULTURE OF CARE TO A CULTURE OF HEALTH
Top health care expert addresses ACOs’ challenges to bringing health care into the future
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (July 17, 2013) – Accountable Care Organizations must overcome an array of obstacles inherent to the current structure of our care-based health care system in order to achieve success, Dr. Stephen Shortell of UC Berkeley said today.
Shortell, who was recently appointed Dean Emeritus of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and is chair of the Berkeley Healthcare Forum, prescribed the solutions to these challenges as building a more robust enrollment size, innovating care management, promoting collaborative governance, creating new tools for information exchange and risk prediction, incentivizing patient engagement and agreeing on a common set of cost quality measures and thresholds.
“We’re in the process of moving from a culture of sickness to where we are today in a culture of care,” Shortell said. “We have not yet migrated in this country to a culture of health.”
Shortell made the remarks at an ACO Innovation Summit hosted today at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco by NEHI, a national health policy institute. The summit brought together all of the different sectors of health care to explore how the rapid growth and expansion of ACOs will impact the availability of drugs and devices, how ACOs will approach purchasing decisions for new innovations, and how innovators can work with ACOs to improve health care quality and lower health care costs.
Shortell was joined by a number of other national health care leaders, including Margaret Laws of the California HealthCare Foundation; Dr. Molly Joel Coyeof UCLA Health; Jeff Felton of RelayHealth; Dr. Jo Carol Hiatt of Kaiser Permanente; Mark Morgan of Anthem Blue Cross, and Dr. Helen Torley of Onyx Pharmaceuticals.
###
About NEHI
NEHI is a national health policy institute focused on enabling innovation to improve health care quality and lower health care costs. In partnership with members from all across the health care system, NEHI conducts evidence-based research and stimulates policy change to improve the quality and the value of health care. Together with this unparalleled network of committed health care leaders, NEHI brings an objective, collaborative and fresh voice to health policy. For more information, visit www.nehi.net or follow us @NEHI_News.
