New York, NY, August 2, 2006 -- A panel of prominent leaders from all sectors of the health care system today issued its Framework for a High Performance Health System for the United States. The report says that, although some of the best medical care in the world is delivered in the United States, when examined as a whole our country falls far short of providing high-quality, safe, well-coordinated, and efficient care, accessible to all Americans--and that we are failing to deliver adequate value for the very high proportion of resources we devote to health care in this country.

The report from the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System states that there are concrete steps that could be taken to improve value, for example:

• Implementing major known quality and safety improvements;

• expanding the use of information technology;

• rewarding performance for quality and efficiency through our payment systems;

• increasing public reporting on quality and costs;

• importantly, expanding health insurance coverage.

The Commission finds that central to implementing these changes is the need to establish more organized systems of care so that individual practitioners and hospitals can have:

• A structure within which to implement known quality and safety improvements;

• a structure to invest in and support appropriate information technology advances;

• a sufficiently broad base to enter into pay-for-performance contracts which reward quality and efficiency;

• the ability to provide reliable and objective public comparison of results among systems and providers; and

• the ability to care for patients across a range of needs for acute and chronic services.

"There is wide agreement among the public, policymakers, and health care professionals that we should get much more from our
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Contact: Mary Mahon
mm@cmwf.org
212-606-3853
Commonwealth Fund
2-Aug-2006