Collaboration Key to Patient-Centric Healthcare System
Last week Ernst & Young released their annual publication for the US health care provider industry. New horizons: 2012 health care provider report identifies collaboration as key to a patient-centric healthcare system. The report examines how collaboration is imperative in delivering quality care and better outcomes at lower costs.
Looking to nature as a collaborative guide post, the report suggests collaboration in the health care sector needs to include:
- Policy-makers
- Hospitals, health care professionals and insurance companies
- Federal and state regulators
- Health care organizations investing in Health IT
- Traditional and non-traditional health care players
- Provider care organizations
- Researchers developing tools to measure health care collaboration
“The forces at work today are unprecedented,” said Jon Weaver, Provider Care Sector Leader, Ernst & Young LLP. “Collaboration with stakeholders to share knowledge, pool resources and synergistically enhance patient care has become a common theme. We are in a time when silos are being razed, connections made, and shared purposes linked.”
The report examines these key areas for stakeholders to focus:
- Consolidation and integration – In an environment where consolidation shows now signs of letting up health care entities will need to keep strong connections as they are forged with others.
- Health IT – Stage 2 meaningful use emphasizes secure exchange of clinical information requiring new procedural codes and new reporting standards.
- New payment and delivery models – If health care providers are to succeed under new payment models they will have to assess their own capabilities and find partners to help bear the risks and share in the rewards.
- Federal health care policy – Healthcare reform will continue to be a central issue in the 2012 election year. Regardless of election outcomes health care providers must continue to look at collaborative strategies to help improve delivery of care and outcomes at lowers costs.
You can download the full report or visit the E&Y website.