Integrated health systems and cost: accountability and price control are also important.

Integrated Health Services are frequently thought as a tool to decrease healthcare-related costs, specially in systems with a high level of fragmentation. In the US healthcare system reform, Medicare has often been used as a reference point of the overall health expenditure. In this post, this hypothesis is analysed according to a recent article from the National Bureau of Economic Research ("The Price Ain’t Right? Hospital Prices and Health Spending on the Privately Insured") where the authors review the costs of 306 Hospital Referral Regions in the US, showing a big discordance between Medicare costs and overall costs.

In the analysis of Josh Freeman it is said that the dominant position of some integrated health services in some regions is used to perform very efficient healthcare provission in the Medicare level but also to increase the rates to private insurers.

Integrated Care Summit 2016: Improving local population health and delivering accountable care

This conference will explore the ways NHS organisations and their partners can collaborate in order to meet the needs of the population they serve. Showcasing learning from national and international accountable care systems, as well as other emerging new care models, conference sessions will provide a key opportunity to hear and learn from local areas on the journey towards more systemic and integrated approaches to improving population health.

Partnership and accountability in the era of integrated care: a tale from England

In England, the 2012 Health and Social Care Act was heralded to be among the most significant changes in policy for the National Health Service (NHS) since its inception in 1948. Yet a key theme of the policy, namely the intensification of competition in service provision, has not fully materialised.
The 2014 Five Year Forward View outlined visions for a more integrated health and care system in England. Subsequent guidance introduced new organisational forms, such as the so-called Sustainability and Transformation Plans and integrated care systems

Horizontal and Vertical Integration of Health Care Providers: A Framework for Understanding Various Provider Organizational Structures

Current U.S. policy and payment initiatives aim to encourage health care provider accountability for population health and higher value care, resulting in efforts to integrate providers along the continuum. Providers work together through diverse organizational structures, yet evidence is limited regarding how to best organize the delivery system to achieve higher value care. 

The influence of leadership facilitation on relational coordination among primary care team members of accountable care organizations.

Teamwork is a central aspect of integrated care delivery and increasingly critical to primary care practices of accountable care organizations. Although the importance of leadership facilitation in implementing organizational change is well documented, less is known about the extent to which strong leadership facilitation can positively influence relational coordination among primary care team members.

Patient Experiences of Integrated Care in Medicare Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare Advantage Versus Traditional Fee-for-Service

Health insurance design can influence the extent to which clinical care is well-coordinated. Through alternative payment models, Medicare Advantage (MA) and Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) have the potential to improve integration relative to traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare.