Kaiser Permanente's Tyson in AJMC: Shift Focus To Maximize "Healthy Life" Years

Current healthcare spending trends are neither sustainable nor acceptable, not for consumers, nor for employers who pay for healthcare and healthcare coverage, writes Kaiser Permanente Chairman and CEO Bernard J. Tyson in a guest commentary that appears in the June issue of The American Journal of Managed Care.

Tyson’s article, “Moving from Healthcare to Health,” is part of the yearlong series from healthcare opinion leaders appearing in the journal to mark its 20^th year of publication. In his commentary, Tyson outlines the need to shed old ways of thinking and move healthcare resources forward in the life cycle to increase quality and deliver more value.

“We need to move to an approach that focuses on health, not just care, which means we need to push the healthcare dollars upstream through all stages of life and focus more on prevention, early detection, and early treatment, so we can maximize what I call the ‘healthy life’ years.” Tyson writes.

Pressing ahead for value-based payment models, such as those advocated by US Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathew Burwell, is essential, he said. “We are still on the runway as far as making healthcare affordable in this country, but the signs are promising,” Tyson writes.

Kaiser Permanente is one of America’s leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans, serving more than 10 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia.

For the full commentary, click here. To read all the 20^th anniversary commentaries and related material, please visit our special anniversary page.

About the Journals

The American Journal of Managed Care celebrates its 20^th year in 2015 as the leading peer-reviewed journal dedicated to issues in managed care. Other titles in the franchise include The American Journal of Pharmacy Benefits, which provides pharmacy and formulary decision-makers with information to improve the efficiency and health outcomes in managing pharmaceutical care, and The American Journal of Accountable Care, which publishes research and commentary on new healthcare delivery models facilitated by the 2010 Affordable Care Act. AJMC’s news publications, the Evidence-Based series, bring together stakeholder views from payers, providers, policymakers and pharmaceutical leaders in oncology and diabetes management. To order reprints of articles appearing in AJMC publications, please call (609) 716-7777, x 131.

CONTACT: Nicole Beagin (609) 716-7777 x 131

nbeagin@ajmc.com

www.ajmc.com