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
AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange Web Site has been relaunched today. "The redesigned site features streamlined navigation, enhanced browsing and filtering, and multimedia and social media elements to facilitate finding and sharing innovative health care solutions and tools." The redesigned makes the main content areas more visible and accessible, includes a browse-by-subject feature, rotating issue photos and videos, as well as social media links.
Labels: AHQR, healthcare, innovation, innovation exchange, knowledge transfer, knowledge translation, Web 2.0, webcasts
Translational medicine just got a shot in the arm with
DynaMed teaming up with
McMaster University (Health Information Research Unit), along with a body of physicians from around the world, to identify and synthesize practice-changing evidence by monitoring high-quality research across medical disciplines. To faciltiate the rapid application of research,
DynaMed synthesizes the new evidence, summarizes it into a digestable format, and rates the relevance for decision support.
"The sheer volume of the new information being published makes it impossible for a practicing physician to read every article or to identify which articles contain research that needs to be put into practice. Having a mechanism to synthesize the new medical evidence into a useable format and rate the relevance is becoming more and more essential. The agreement between McMaster University and DynaMed provides physicians with the information they need to know—the best available evidence—when and where they need it most—at the point of care."
Need help accessing DynaMed? Come and see us in the Library for your EBSCO login and/or your mobile access code.
Labels: decision support, DynaMed, evidence-based practice, knowledge transfer, McMaster University, translational medicine
"The enemy of disease is knowledge!"
~ Sir Muir Gray, Chief Knowledge Officer, NHS.
In a short video interview, Sir Muir Gray likens knowledge to water by stating that just as
'clean, clear water' is crucial to good health, so today's 'water' is
'clean, clear knowledge'. He maintains that this
'knowledge' is even more important than any drug or technological healthcare innovation.
As a spokesperson for the
Map of Medicine, the tool that is tranforming healthcare in the UK and beyond, Sir Gray explains that we are currently in the
'3rd health care revolution'. The three key ingredients in this revolution he states are:
1) knowledge
2) the internet
3) patients
This
Web 3.0 meets the
'6S model' of evidence-based medical practice; is transcending the old
'care plan/ medical record' to facilitate a new, more satisfactory level of interdisciplinary cooperation and patient-physician collaboration for improved health outcomes!
Click on the post title to access the video clip of this interview. Labels: 6S model, evidence-based practice, interdisciplinary healthcare, knowledge transfer, patient education, patient-physician communication, Web 3.0
Editors are now collaborating on the
Medpedia Project to collect the best information about health, medicine and the body and make it freely available worldwide.
Only physicians and Ph.D.s in a biomedical field are allowed to make edits directly to the article pages. However, everyone is encouraged to contribute by using the
"Suggest Changes" link at the top of each article page.
Think of
The Medpedia Project as the free technology platform for the medical community, a sort of 'Wikipedia' for the sharing and advancing of knowledge about health, medicine and the body.
Labels: consumer health information, knowledge transfer, medical encyclopedia, Medpedia Project, patient-physician communication, Web 2.0, wikis
"The
Emerging Health Threats Forum is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, established with support from the UK’s Health Protection Agency.
Their mission is to make a significant contribution to the preparedness for and response to emerging health threats by:
~ identifying and tracking emerging health threats.
~ publishing original research and critically reviewing other published research on emerging health threats.
~ providing early and accurate risk assessments for policymakers, fund-holders, and other public-health officials, particularly those charged with emergency planning and crisis management.
~ identifying and highlighting for policymakers and fund-holders potential deficiencies in present or future resource allocation.
~ providing an international forum for health-protection officials, scientists, and policymakers to debate emerging health threats.
~ publishing the latest best thinking on disaster preparedness and crisis management.
~ uniquely publishing strategic lessons learned in disaster and crisis response.
~ interpreting scientific developments for the media and general public.
~ providing an international forum for scientists concerned about the dual use of science."
Read the latest Emerging Health Threats Journal issue, the latest weekly newsletter, and sign up for RSS feeds from this informative site.Labels: crisis management, disaster preparedness, emergency planning, emerging health threats, health policy, health protection, knowledge transfer, risk assessment
