Getting to value in healthcare has proven to be difficult, but succesful programs have certain characteristics, said David Blumenthal, MD, MPP, president of The Commonwealth Fund.
Getting to value in healthcare has proven to be difficult, but succesful programs have certain characteristics, said David Blumenthal, MD, MPP, president of The Commonwealth Fund.
Transcript
As the healthcare industry continues to move toward value-based care, what best practices have come to light?
Getting the value is hard we’ve discovered in a number of best practices. We think that when providers and payers are closely aligned, that there tends to be an environment in which value is easier to achieve. An example of those are Geissinger and Kaiser and Henry Ford. We’ve also found in our work on high-need, high-cost patients that there are certain characteristics of successful programs that manage that very important population that seem to be found in common among successful programs. For example, the use of information technology to inform care, the use of teams, engagement of patients and segmentation of patients to identify those who need different types of care. I think we’re making progress overall, there’s no question that it’s hard work and there’s a lot more work to do.
What are the biggest challenges you’ve seen in the move toward value-based care?
Well one is measurement. It’s hard to measure quality and controversy and burden associated with it and a recognition that sometimes the measures produce selection of patients that’s not good for high-risk patients and low income patients. That’s one important challenge. The other is getting past fee-for-service and getting to a place where accountability for cost and quality are married in the same organizations. And the third is getting those organizations to have the right sills and the right technology so they can effectively manage and be accountable for the candidate provide.
LLMs Show Promise, But Challenges Remain in Improving Inefficient Clinical Trial Screening
July 31st 2025Large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 may offer a solution to the costly and inefficient process of manual clinical trial screening, which is often hindered by the inability of structured electronic health record data to capture all necessary criteria.
Read More
Laundromats as a New Frontier in Community Health, Medicaid Outreach
May 29th 2025Lindsey Leininger, PhD, and Allister Chang, MPA, highlight the potential of laundromats as accessible, community-based settings to support Medicaid outreach, foster trust, and connect families with essential health and social services.
Listen
Trends in Insulin Out-of-Pocket Costs and Use Disparities, 2008-2021
July 31st 2025Given trends in cost and use, insulin out-of-pocket cost reduction policies would be more efficient if they targeted members in high-deductible health plans with savings options and low-income patients.
Read More