Your Forum for Tracking the Changing Healthcare Landscape: The American Journal of Accountable Care

PLAINSBORO, N.J. — Healthcare delivery is changing before our eyes. We are moving to an approach that recognizes what many in the field have known intuitively: The best care can – and should – cost less than the sum of its parts. At long last, the world’s most expensive healthcare system appears poised for change. How to keep up? Through The American Journal of Accountable Care, a new, stakeholder-driven publication from the publsiher that has brought you the best peer-reviewed research on managed care over the past 20 years.

The American Journal of Accountable Care comes from Intellisphere’s Managed Care & Healthcare Communications, LLC, which publishes The American Journal of Managed Care. Unlike other publications in this sector, AJAC will be driven by and for stakeholders: the providers, payers, professionals and organizations who are remaking the nation’s healthcare delivery system, as they respond to the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

“We will be out front discussing new ways to deliver care and better ways to pay for it, as the nation moves from a fee-for-service model to one that rewards better care for patients,” said Michael J. Hennessy, chairman and CEO of Intellisphere LLC. Publishing four times a year, The American Journal of Accountable Care will reach 40,000 healthcare professionals.

In 2014, AJMC will enter its 20^th year as the leading source of peer-reviewed research and commentary across all issues affecting managed care. The American Journal of Accountable Care will be keenly focused on healthcare reform, and, in turn, new practices required by the transition to payment models keyed to measures of healthcare quality.

AJAC’s publication schedule and submissions criteria will allow for a more timely response to current issues in the public arena, according to Brian Haug, president of Managed Markets for Intellisphere and publisher of the new journal. “We welcome commentary from thought leaders and groups actively engaged in the revolution taking place in healthcare that might not normally participate in AJMC,” Haug said.

Donovan T. Maust MD, assistant professor of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan and the Center for Clinical Management Research VA, Ann Arbor Health System, served as guest editor of the inaugural issue. In their essay, “Accountable Care Organizations: Looking for Answers to an Overspending, Underachieving System,” Dr. Maust and fellow University of Michigan expert A. Mark Fendrick, MD, co-editor-in-chief of AJMC, lay out the essential questions that will AJAC will ask:

• Is the accountable care movement increasing the use of evidence-based, high-value care?
• Are specific patient populations being left out of the accountable care movement?
• What aspects of implementation of accountable care organizations (ACOs) replicable in other settings?
• What role do consumers play in accountable are?
• Where do public health initiatives fit in to the accountable care movement?
• What are the effects of accountable care on direct medical expenditures and the economy as whole?

AJAC will also include coverage of major conferences that focus on new delivery systems and payment models. The inaugural issue covers the recent conference on Medicare, Medicaid and Dual Eligibles, sponsored by America’s Health Insurance Plans, a strategic partner of AJMC.

The first issue features lessons from the front lines, starting with original research by The Brookings Institute’s Kavita K. Patel, MD, MS, “Collaborative Care Before Accountable Care: Achieving Low-Cost, High-Quality Care through a Regional Collaborative in Florida;” a feature about the Trenton Health Team in New Jersey’s capital city by Ruth E. Perry, MD, “Building the Infrastructure for a Safety-Net Accountable Care Organization;” and evidence-based advise for those entering ACO agreements, entitled, “Is the Deal Any Good?” from Francois de Brantes, MS, MBA.

READ THE FULL ISSUE HERE:

http://www.ajmc.com/publications/AJAC/2013/2013-1-vol1-n1

FOR SUBMISSIONS and INFORMATION:

Contact Nicole Beagin, Associate Editorial Director. (609) 716-7777 x 131

nbeagin@ajmc.com

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