Health care delivery system reform: six policy imperatives
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Contributor(s):
- Commonwealth Fund, issuing body. Commonwealth Fund. Task Force on Payment and Delivery System Reform issuing body.
- Publication:
- [New York, New York] : The Commonwealth Fund, November 2020
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Health Care Reform -- organization & administration Health Policy United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Despite its centers of academic excellence, world-renowned research, and leadership in innovation, the U.S. health care system is also known for other traits: high costs, fragmented coverage and care, uneven quality of services, and pervasive inequities. Overlay the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic on these shortcomings, and the list grows longer: unprepared, disorganized, dysfunctional, and inefficient. Attempting to overcome these deficiencies, health systems in the U.S. have long studied, tested, and adopted improvements in the delivery of care. For their part, payers and policymakers have sought to encourage these improvements through incentives and mandates. Yet health care delivery systems continue to demonstrate high levels of inefficiency, while longstanding disparities in care persist by race and ethnicity, income, gender, and geography. The Commonwealth Fund Task Force on Payment and Delivery System Reform believes that meaningful improvements to how health care is organized, paid for, and delivered are both needed and possible, even at a time when discourse around health care is politically contentious. The Commonwealth Fund in March 2019 convened the Task Force--whose membership includes delivery system leaders, health insurance executives, patient advocates, current and former federal and state officials, and business leaders reflecting a wide array of expertise and perspectives--to look back on more than a decade of experimentation and innovation in payment and care delivery. Drawing on evidence from these initiatives, and on their own expertise, Task Force members reached consensus on a concrete policy agenda that could inform congressional and legislative attempts to put the nation on a path to health care system improvement over the next 10 years. It should be noted that achieving meaningful improvements that benefit all Americans will require many far-reaching initiatives and reforms that this report does not address. These include: significant expansions in health care coverage; a stronger public health system; measures to address social determinants of health; and efforts to eliminate deeply embedded racism in society generally and in health care in particular. The Task Force also recognizes that in focusing on federal action, the report does not speak to the critical role states have in improving the health of their residents. These limitations, however, do not obviate the critical role of federal leadership in addressing the flaws in our health care system and in stimulating efforts within the private sector. The Task Force chose to start at the national level and with delivery system reform, an area holding substantial opportunities for bipartisan collaboration--a particularly important consideration as the nation confronts health, social, and economic crises that are devastating already vulnerable communities and straining our health care workforce.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (vii, 29 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101774890 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101774890