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American College of Surgeons and Harvard partner to develop value measurement tool for hospitals

Press releases may be edited for formatting or style | July 19, 2019 Operating Room
WASHINGTON, July 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Leaders from the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and Harvard Business School's (HBS) Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness gathered on Capitol Hill today to announce a new partnership aimed at improving health care value. The two organizations, recognized as global leaders in quality and cost measurement, announced a new program to help hospitals and surgical practices improve patient outcomes while lowering the cost of delivering care. Better measurement of quality and costs will enable hospitals to improve the value they deliver to patients while positioning them for success as reimbursement shifts to bundled payments, an approach that increases transparency and accountability.

"Clearly defining the value of patient care is critical to our nation's health care system," said David B. Hoyt, MD, FACS, Executive Director of the American College of Surgeons. "As the patient care model continues to evolve, we must place a premium on providing the utmost quality and efficiency in our hospitals. This program will help hospitals identify clear opportunities to do that."

At the event on Capitol Hill, leaders of the program, called ACS THRIVE (Transforming Health care Resources to Increase Value and Efficiency), discussed the challenges the nation's health system faces as it moves from volume to value-based payment models, the changing team dynamics within hospitals, and the new care models that health systems must adopt.

"We want to reduce the high costs incurred in the U.S. health care sector, but do this in ways that don't compromise the quality of care or a patient's access to it," said Prof. Robert Kaplan, MS, PhD, Senior Fellow and Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development, Emeritus, HBS. "Cutting costs by arbitrary reduction in headcount is not a sustainable solution. True cost improvement requires that we first measure what it costs today to treat a patient's medical condition, and then redesign the care model to deliver the same or, preferably, better outcomes with a lower-cost mix of resources, especially personnel, equipment, devices and drugs."

"Surgical care is more than just the operative procedure," said Frank G. Opelka, MD, FACS, Medical Director, ACS Quality and Health Policy. "Surgical care involves teams of clinicians who begin delivering care in the preoperative phase, include anesthesia, nursing care and medical specialties and continues through to postoperative rehabilitation. As a team, we need to optimize each phase of care to provide the best outcomes for patients and meet their goals. "

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