Highest Quality Care

Goals 

• Increase development and use of evidence-based care
• Reward care outcomes
• Support doctors, hospitals and others in working together to coordinate care on behalf of patients
• Coordinate treatment of physical and behavioral health needs
• Increase availability and use of compassionate end-of-life care

Public Policy Ideas for Change 

• Modernize laws and regulations to allow doctors, hospitals, and others to work together in teams or “networks”*
• Create a national investment to research the best evidence in patient care and effective quality improvement strategies.  Develop methods for speeding the adoption of these methods within the field
• Clinical integration*
• Renovate the education of health care professionals and the broader health care workforce
• Test payment redesign to reward quality providers who follow recommended “best practices”*
• Test payment redesign to give provider groups a single amount to manage the entire episode of a patient’s care and better coordinate care*
• Integrate physical and mental health care delivery
• Expand options for end-of-life care at home
• Require everyone to complete and providers to honor a summary of wishes regarding life-sustaining treatment
• Adequately fund national performance improvement measurement*
• Redesign coverage and payment to guarantee parity
• Make available to consumers meaningful information on the quality, price, use and comparative effectiveness of health care services
• Create a better alternative to today’s liability system*
• Analyze the comparative effectiveness, risks, and benefits of new technologies, medicines, practices and procedures for individual conditions
• Reduce health disparities and inequity in health care delivery