Summary
The costs of care in the U.S. are very high, in part because canre is relatively uncoordinated.
To begin to address this and other issues, health care reform was passed, including
the notion of accountable care. Under acountable care arrangements, providers are
at risk for the costs of the care they provide to groups of patients. Evaluation of
costs has made it clear that a large proportion of these costs are in the post-acute
setting, and also that many specific problems such as adverse events and unnecessary
readmissions occur following transitions. However, the electronic health records of
today do not provide a great deal of assistance with the coordination of care, and
even the best organizations have relatively primitive systems with respect to care
coordination, even though communication is absolutely central to better coordination
of care and health information technology (HIT) is a powerful lever for improving
communication. This paper identifies specific gaps in care coordination today, presents
a framework for better coordinating care using HIT, then describes how specific technologies
can be leveraged. Also discussed are the need to build and test specific interventions
to improve HIT-related care coordination tools, and the key policy steps needed to
accomplish this.
Keywords
Health information technology - electronic health records - meaningful use - quality
- efficiency - accountable care organization
