Friday Sem Replacement Activity

Week of February 17^th

Activity: Quality Care for Less Money: Can Regional Successes Go National?

February 15^th 12pm – 1:45pm

Barbara Jordan Conference Center

Kaiser Family Foundation Office

The Kaiser Family Foundation hosted an event featuring an upcoming PBS documentary, U.S. Health Care: The Good News. The documentary highlights unique models of efficient, low cost, quality health care happening in the United States. The event began with a five-minute clip screening of the documentary and then segued into an hour-long panel discussion about challenges and potential solutions for achieving affordable and effective health care nation-wide.

The panelists were:

Dr. Elliott Fisher, Professor of Medicine and Director, Population Health & Policy, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice

Carol Beasley, Director of Strategic Projects, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Dr. Mark McClellan, Director, The Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform, Brookings Institution

Sean Cavanaugh, Acting Deputy Director of Programs & Policy, Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation, CMS

The event was moderated by Jackie Judd, Vice President & Executive Producer of Multimedia, Kaiser Family Foundation.

There were several key points that emerged from the panel discussion:

1. It is important to use rigorous methodologies to evaluate the effectiveness of current practices and quality improvement initiatives
2. Healthcare policies need to be aligned with practices that promote better care at lower costs
3. When evaluating quality, the subjective (Does my provider know me? Know my circumstances? Can I access care when I need it? i.e. “patient-centered”) is just as important as the more objective IOM aims (safe, effective, timely, equitable, efficient)
4. Effective quality improvement depends on a strong sense of community, a focus on continuous improvement and a strong leader – a quality “champion”

Overall, I thought that this was a great panel discussion. For anyone interested, an archived webcast, a transcript and a podcast should be available at kff.org/content/video.cfm. See if you can spot me in the crowd!

The PBS documentary U.S. Healthcare: The Good News premieres Thursday, February 16^th at 9pm.