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Combined Regional Investments Could Substantially Enhance Health System Performance And Be Financially Affordable
Jack Homer1, Bobby Milstein2, Gary B Hirsch3
1Jack Homer is principal of Homer Consulting, in Barrytown, New York, and a senior modeler at ReThink Health and a research affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in Cambridge.
Health Affairs (Project Hope)
|August 10, 2016
Summary
Transforming health systems requires integrated strategies. Combining clinical, behavioral, and socioeconomic initiatives can significantly improve health outcomes and economic productivity while reducing healthcare costs.
Area of Science:
- Health Services Research
- Health Economics
- Systems Dynamics Modeling
Background:
- Healthcare leaders face challenges in improving regional health system performance.
- The ReThink Health Dynamics Model offers a simulation tool for exploring future health system scenarios.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the consequences of layered interventions on health system performance.
- To estimate the impact of four key interventions on health, costs, and economic productivity.
Main Methods:
- Simulation using the ReThink Health Dynamics Model.
- Analysis of layered combinations of four interventions in a prototypical midsize US city.
- Estimation of effects on higher-value care, global payment, healthier behaviors, and socioeconomic opportunities.
Main Results:
- Combined interventions can reduce severe illness by 20%, lower healthcare costs by 14%, and improve economic productivity by 9%.
- Achieving these outcomes requires integrated investments in clinical and population-level initiatives.
- Financial agreements that reduce costly care incentives and reinvest savings are crucial for long-term financing.
Conclusions:
- An integrated approach combining clinical, behavioral, and socioeconomic strategies offers an effective and affordable path to enhanced health and economic potential.
- System transformation necessitates financial reforms that support value-based care and reinvest savings.
- Multi-faceted investments are key to unlocking significant improvements in population health and economic vitality.
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