Berwick: New technology will make coordinating care easier

CQ HealthBeat: "Health care practitioners have new information technologies at their disposal that will make coordinating care among providers easier and more effective than the old health maintenance organization model of 40 years ago, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services told a group of policy experts Tuesday." At a meeting on long term care, CMS Administrator Donald Berwick "noted that the federal government is in the midst of a major effort to invest in health information technology and that research over the decades has provided new information about what works" (Adams, 10/12). (Kaiser Health News is a program of the foundation.)

Kaiser Health News reported on studies released at that event. "Medicare beneficiaries who reside in long-term care facilities account for an excessive and preventable portion of Medicare spending because of high rates of hospitalization, emergency room visits and skilled nursing care, according to reports released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The findings suggest policymakers looking to trim Medicare expenditures in accordance with the new federal health care law may want to take a closer look at developing a more coordinated system of care for this narrow subset of the Medicare population" (Miles, 10/12).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.