Projects
The Engelberg Center is conducting a range of projects that support comprehensive health care reform. These projects and partnerships enhance the Center’s ability to implement change at all levels and bring academic and technical expertise to bear on practical solutions to state and national health care challenges. Projects include:
Getting to Higher Quality and Value in Health Care: High-Value Health Care and the Quality Alliance Steering Committee
The High-Value Health Care Project supports the Quality Alliance Steering Committee in its efforts to better understand how well physicians, hospitals and other health care providers are performing. The information is vital to help health care providers improve the quality of patient care; help consumers make informed choices about health care providers; and help pay providers in a way that supports efforts to improve quality and efficiency, and increase racial and ethnic equity in care. Read more »
Payment and Delivery System Reform
The Center is developing and evaluating new models of provider payment to support greater value in health care. In Medicare, the current payment system for physician services has failed to achieve its intended effects to control Medicare spending growth and is widely considered to be flawed. It generally pays physicians based on volume and intensity of services, not on the cost or quality of care that patients receive. The Center’s Medicare Payment Reform Project is working to develop policy proposals that would reward providers for improving efficiency, quality, and coordination of care by moving toward greater accountability and support for overall quality and cost. The Center is also examining the impacts of payment and delivery reforms on academic medical centers (AMCs), including ways in which AMCs can serve as models of innovation in improving treatments and delivering high-value care. Read more »
Evidence-Based Health Care
To more effectively treat patients and improve the quality of care, more and better evidence is needed about treatments and delivery models that work. The Engelberg Center is at the forefront of several initiatives designed to both broaden the evidence base and facilitate the application of evidence to both patient care and health policy decisions. For example, through public and private collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders, the Center is working to develop better ways of monitoring medical product safety in the post-market environment. Additionally, with the comparative effectiveness of health care treatments and strategies gaining more attention, the Center is collaborating with national experts in comparative effectiveness research (CER) to lay out the issues and next steps to ensure the CER policies that are implemented will improve the quality and value of health care services. Read more »
Medical Innovation
The Engelberg Center is collaborating with public and private organizations – including patient and consumer organizations, political leaders, researchers, and the media – to improve the process and the science of developing new treatments for patients. Currently, this work is improving the development of cancer therapies, as well as advancing innovative care for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Read more »
State and Regional Reform Efforts
Many states are leading the way in developing efforts to improve how health care is delivered. The Engelberg Center’s State Health Reform project encompasses three key components: assisting states interested in or undertaking payment reforms to support improvements in care, building evidence for delivery and payment reforms, and mobilizing leadership to develop state and federal policy changes to support these goals. Read more »
Health Information Technology
The increased use of health information technology (IT) holds considerable promise for improving how health care is delivered in the United States, but much of that promise remains unfulfilled. The goal of advancing the adoption and use of health IT is reflected in projects across the Engelberg Center, including one that will focus on improving chronic care with effective health IT. Other projects are examining ways to realign the reimbursement structure and improving health IT efficiencies, ultimately increasing adoption, improving quality, and lowering costs. Read more »
Improving Health: Not Just (Or Mainly) Medical Care
A large amount of research confirms that a economic, social, and physical factors have a major impact on health, yet implementing policies to close these health gaps has been challenging. To address factors beyond the traditional health care system that affect a person’s health and welfare, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) launched the Commission to Build a Healthier America, which is co-chaired by Engelberg Center Director Mark McClellan and Brookings Senior Fellow Alice Rivlin. Read more »