America's Path to the Best Health Care at Lower Cost: IOM Report
The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (IOM) released a report yesterday (September 6, 2012) entitled
"Best Care at Lower Cost : The Path to Continuously Learning Health Care in America." The IOM's Committee on the
Learning Health Care System in America was tasked with determining the key challenges to health care in the United States today.
"America's health care system has become far too complex and costly to continue business as usual. Pervasive inefficiencies, an inability to manage a rapidly deepening clinical knowledge base, and a reward system poorly focused on key patient needs, all hinder improvements in the safety and quality of care and threaten the nation's economic stability and global competitiveness. Achieving higher quality care at lower cost will require fundamental commitments to the incentives, culture, and leadership that foster continuous "learning”, as the lessons from research and each care experience are systematically captured, assessed, and translated into reliable care."
In brief this report identifies three major imperatives for change:
- the rising complexity of modern health care
- unsustainable cost increases
- outcomes below the system’s potential
Read the brief or full report free online at the IOM website.
Labels: health care costs, health services, healthcare reform, IOM, knowledge transfer, patient safety, quality of care, US healthcare
The
New York Times weighs in on the recent
Institute of Medicine's landmark report,
“The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.” [ Doctor and Patient: Nurses’ Role in the Future of Health Care, Pauline Chen, M.D., November 18, 2010. Click title for NYT article.] "In all the discussions about adjusting the number of medical schools and training slots, rearranging physician payment schedules and reorganizing practice models, one group of providers has been conspicuously missing. The nurses."
"The expert panel is scheduled to convene again at the end of this month, this time to discuss implementing their recommendations. They will have their work cut out for them. Critics like the American Medical Association ...warns that “with a shortage of both nurses and physicians, increasing the responsibility of nurses is not the answer to the physician shortage.” "
The Times article notes...
“When the ship seems to be going down, you’ve got to get all hands on deck.”Labels: AMA, healthcare reform, healthcare workers, IOM, nursing shortage, physician shortage, role of nurse, role of physician, trends in healthcare
The
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has launched a new on-line tool aimed to help consumers take control of their own health care by connecting them to new information and resources that will help them access quality, affordable health care coverage. The government is billing this new website,
HealthCare.gov, as
"the first to provide consumers with both public and private health coverage options tailored specifically for their needs in a single, easy-to-use tool."
Go to HealthCare.gov or click on the blog title to read the press release.Labels: consumer health information, health insurance, healthcare reform
New Zealand's healthcare system is facing an increasing challenge to meet current demands while anticipating demand to still double in the next ten years. Yet...
"The Government has funding for 154 general practice trainees; only two-thirds of the places have been filled." Meanwhile..."We have been told by the World Health Organisation that our reliance on importing health workers is unsustainable. About 70 per cent of psychiatrists, 40 per cent of all doctors and midwives, and 25 per cent of nurses and dentists working in New Zealand were trained overseas."
"Things must be done differently (says Des Gorman) and Health Workforce NZ has the task of facilitating this reform. Ironically, this includes a return to the past for both medicine and nursing."
How so?
Click title to read more from The Dominion Post [Jan 6, 2010] ...also new reports were released in Aug 2009 addressing the education and training of New Zealand's healthcare workforce.
Des Gorman is head of
Auckland University School of Medicine and chairman of
Health Workforce New Zealand.
Labels: health workforce, healthcare reform, healthcare workers, medical education, New Zealand, nursing education
Health care in the U.S. is a 2 trillion dollar industry making up 16% of the overall economy. There are a host of dynamic internal and external changes that are radically reshaping the health care environment and impacting consumers, providers, and institutions of care.
To accommodate schedules as best as possible, the webinar will be offered twice:
Thursday, March 20 & Friday, March 21st ~ from 12:00noon – 1:00pm ET.To join the Webinars, please follow these instructions. Approximately 10-15 minutes or so before the scheduled start time:
1) In your web browser, type in
www.genesys.com2) In the upper right hand corner, where it reads Start or Join Meeting, click on “As a Participant”
3) In the next screen that appears, next to the phrase “Moderator’s Meeting Number” – enter the meeting number
[ask or phone the Library Desk to obtain the number]4) Then click on “Join Meeting as a Participant”
5) Once you do that, you can enter your name and then your telephone number to request to be dialed into the audio portion of the call.
Again, we strongly recommend you follow this process at least 10 minutes or so ahead of time, to allow time for troubleshooting if necessary. Additionally, once you click on “join meeting” a brief browser compatibility test will be launched automatically before you gain access to the meeting.
Labels: healthcare reform, trends in healthcare, US healthcare, webinar
