Turning evidence into practice under payment reform: the new frontier of translational science

Momentum is building to replace the current fee-for-service payment system with value-based reimbursement models that aim to deliver high quality care at lower costs. Although the goals of payment and delivery system reforms to improve quality and reduce costs are clear, the actual path by which provider groups can achieve these goals is not well understood, in large part because the role of identifying and discouraging the use of low-value, high-cost services and encouraging the use of high-value, low-cost services has traditionally fallen to health plans, not provider groups. The shifting focus towards provider accountability for costs and quality promises to expand the role of provider organizations from mainly delivering care to both delivering and prioritizing it based on costs and quality. We discuss how progress on two important but challenging fronts will be needed for provider groups to successfully translate evidence into value. First, robust evidence on the costs and benefits of treatments will need to be developed and made easily accessible to provider groups. Second, provider groups will need to translate that evidence into systems that support cost-effective clinical decisions.