April 2001 • Volume 7 • Number 4
AAFP backs IOM call for system-wide improvements
The nation's "disjointed and inefficient" health care system cannot provide safe, high-quality care consistently to all Americans and must be reformed, the Institute of Medicine says in a report released in March. To make reform a reality, Congress should create a $1 billion "innovation fund" to help subsidize promising projects and communicate the need for rapid and significant changes throughout the health system -- funding similar to that which supported the mapping of the human genome.
The IOM issued its new report, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, on March 1. That same day, the AAFP and three other medical groups issued a statement supporting the report.
According to the report, the reform effort should focus on improving care for common, chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and asthma -- conditions that are the leading causes of illness in the nation and that consume substantial resources.
"These ailments usually require care over time by a variety of clinicians and in a variety of health care settings. But those who provide the care work so independently that they frequently don't have complete information about patients' conditions, medical histories or treatment received in other settings," says Joseph Scherger, M.D., a former AAFP director who served on the IOM committee that developed the report. He is associate dean for primary care at the University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine.
To initiate reform, IOM wants the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to identify 15 or more common, chronic conditions, and then wants health care professionals, hospitals, health plans and purchasers to develop strategies to improve care for the conditions over a five-year period. The revamped system also should encourage greater use of information technology, says Scherger.
In the joint statement supporting the IOM report, AAFP Executive Vice President Douglas Henley, M.D., says the organizations issuing the statement "are committed to learn about issues relating to quality and to develop solutions addressing them." For example, he said, the AAFP's Robert Graham Center and the Academy's practice-based research network are studying the nature of errors in primary care to determine how to improve quality in the medical care setting accessed by most people.
- Go to http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/article/1616-3969.html to read the joint statement.
- Visit http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309072808?Opendocument for the IOM's press release on the new report.
- You also can go to http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/article/1751-3966.html for a list of existing quality improvement projects by the AAFP, AMA and other groups.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2001 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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