In a New York Times op-ed, Atul Gawande, Donald Berwick, Elliott Fisher and Mark McClellan discuss a recent meeting of doctors and leaders from 10 U.S. regions that are providing high-quality care for lower costs.
“Our criteria were simple: find regions with per capita Medicare costs that are low or markedly declining in rank and where federal measures of quality are above average.”
They found a number of idea that could be applied nationally to reduce health care costs and improve the quality of care, including:
- using electronic systems to improve communication among physicians
- investigating the overuse of CAT scans
- tracking measures of quality and meeting cost-reduction goals
- merging two underutilized hospitals
- adopting electronic systems for patient data
The writers say that, in these more efficient areas, “neither the physicians nor the citizens reported feeling that care is ‘rationed.’”
