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Improving the Quality and Value of Health Care

Summary & Participants

Improvements are necessary to make sure Americans get the best quality health care and that money for this care is being spent as effectively as possible. Listen as experts -- both in government and in the private sector -- describe some of the steps taken to improve the health care system.

Medically Reviewed On: July 21, 2008

Webcast Transcript

CAROLYN CLANCY, MD: Transparency has a number of different dimensions that I think are very important. One is it gives individuals good information about who is doing a better job. Probably more importantly, it gives health care professionals and organizations information about where they need to improve.

ANNOUNCER: Insurers are also using information on how doctors and hospitals perform to encourage patients to use providers who have better results.

REED TUCKSON, MD: So we're seeing, for example, new health benefit designs, new insurance products that provide financial incentive -- if you, in fact, choose the best performers. We're also seeing some new benefit package designs that provide financial penalties if you go to those institutions or to physicians who don't perform as well.

ANNOUNCER: Experts say improvements in quality in health care will also come when health care systems more fully embrace electronic medical records. Efforts to improve the quality and value of health care come from many sectors. The federal government via Medicare. The states. Employers and insurance companies. Increasingly, experts say patients must play a mayor role, too.

CAROLYN CLANCY, MD: Consumers have a very important role. A very famous health care researcher once said that the most underused resource in health care is the American consumer.

REED TUCKSON, MD: But, at the end of the day, you are sitting at your kitchen table on Sunday night and you've got to make a choice. I need to have a shoulder surgery done. Where do I go to get that care? How much money is it going to cost me and my family and how do I plan for the economics of that? And what control do I have over that expenditure? And so I'm going to look at the quality of care that's delivered, I'm going to look at the rates of complications, I'm going to look at the negotiated rate for in-network or out-of-network benefits. I'm going to look at a variety of things and, ultimately, as a health care consumer, I'm going to demand the same level of information and certainty -- of predictive certainty -- as I am expecting when I go to the store to buy a refrigerator or a stove.

ANNOUNCER: Experts agree Americans face many challenges in improving the quality and value of their health care. There are many solutions, and these include: expanding the use of electronic records, making available information about how well doctors and other health care providers deliver care, and changing how insurance companies, employers, and individuals pay for care.

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