Wedding Health Information Technology to Care Delivery Innovation and Provider Payment Reform

Health IT-enabled care models have very practical, doable, near-term applications, can generate significant benefits in terms of the quality and value of health care delivery, and are already being executed successfully today by some leading health care providers. A major barrier to widespread implementation of these models, however, is our provider payment system. As has been well documented, the current U.S. health care payment system pays predominantly for the volume of services rendered, such as office visits and procedures, and not for the quality of health care outcomes. And it's a payment system that effectively punishes providers for achieving efficiencies such as the elimination of avoidable hospital readmissions and unnecessary in-person office visits. If the average medical practice today were to reduce its volume of reimbursed office visits in order to spend more time on unreimbursed care coordination, chronic care management, non-visit-based care, and medication management in order to improve patient health, care quality, and care efficiency, then the sad truth is that the practice would not survive.