New Research Institute Will Build And Implement Evidence Base On Accountable Care

Clif Gaus, ScD, President and CEO of the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) (@NAACOSnews), announced the Board of Directors of the newly launched Institute for Accountable Care, a 501(c)(3) organization with the mission to build the evidence base on accountable care and to evaluate the impact of accountable care models on health care delivery systems. “Accountable care” — where physicians, hospitals, and patients work together to enhance quality of care, reduce costs, and improve population health — is a key strategy in the shift to value-based care.

“To make the kind of informed improvements needed in health care, we must invest in research that advances our knowledge about how to implement accountable care as effectively as possible,” says Institute board member, Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, Director of the Duke-Robert J. Margolis, MD Center for Health Policy at Duke University. “The creation of the Institute for Accountable Care capitalizes on the growing opportunities to expand the evidence-based science on effective accountable care strategies.”

“The Institute will not only build the evidence base but also ensure that effective approaches and best practices get into the hands of providers so they can deliver better care to patients,” says Don Berwick, MD, Institute board member and President Emeritus and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

The Institute for Accountable Care, headquartered in Washington, D.C., will undertake an ambitious research agenda to produce studies and reports that will be available to providers, as well as to researchers, and policy makers. Working with major academic and philanthropic institutions, the Institute’s research portfolio has four areas of focus.

  • To help health care organizations develop successful strategies for improving care and controlling cost growth.
  • To improve data available to researchers for the analysis of accountable care strategies and performance.
  • To promote collaboration among frontline providers and their organizations to achieve improved population health.
  • To test innovative approaches that health care organizations can use to further improve health care while also controlling cost growth.

More information on the Institute and its research agenda will be presented at the NAACOS Fall 2017 Conference on October 5-6 at the Capital Hilton, Washington, D.C.

The inaugural board of the Institute for Accountable Care includes:

Robert A. Berenson, MD
Institute Fellow
The Urban Institute

Don Berwick, MD
President Emeritus and Senior Fellow
Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Clif Gaus, ScD
President and Chief Executive Officer
National Association of ACOs

Mark McClellan, MD, PhD
Director, Duke-Robert J. Margolis, MD Center for Health Policy
Professor of Business, Medicine, and Health Policy
Duke University

J. Michael McWilliams, MD, PhD
Professor of Health Care Policy
Harvard Medical School

Stephen Nuckolls, MAC
Chief Executive Officer
Coastal Carolina Quality Care, Inc.

Denise Prince, MBA, MPH
Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Population Health
Mt. Sinai Health Partners Clinical Operations

Lisa Simpson, MB, BCh, MPH, FAAP
President and Chief Executive Officer
AcademyHealth

Barbara Walters, DO, MBA
Executive Vice President and Chief Population Health Officer
Trinity Health