IoM report identifies priority areas for transforming health care system

IoM report identifies priority areas for transforming health care system

The National Healthcare Quality Report will incorporate a Jan. 7 Institute of Medicine (IoM) report identifying priority areas for improving the health care system. IoM will convene a summit in the fall to develop strategic plans for implementing the identified priority areas. The newly mandated National Healthcare Quality Report, an annual report of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, is due to Congress by September, but it may be released as early as the spring.

The IoM report, "Priority Areas for National Action: Transforming Health Care Quality", calls for a focus on 20 areas to help bring about major improvements in health care quality and delivery. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contracted with the IoM to form a committee that drafted the report in response to an earlier 2001 IoM report, "Crossing the Quality Chasm," calling for radical redesign of the health care system to address gaps between "best practice care" and "actual care."

Among the 20 priority areas recommended were improvement of care coordination; self-management and health literacy; screening and treatment of obesity; and end-of-life care. The report does not recommend strategies for improvement in the priority areas, but rather "evidence for improvability."

The priority areas were selected based on three criteria: impact - burden of a condition on patients, families and societies; improvability - likelihood the care quality gap can be closed; and inclusiveness - relevance to a broad range of individuals and health care settings.

A searchable prepublication copy of "Priority Areas for National Action: Transforming Health Care Quality" is available from the National Academies Press at: [http://www.nap.edu/books/0309085438/html/]

Source: Washington Fax, December 30, 2002