Valley Health Care System

Second in a series of publications from the Institute of Medicine's Quality of Health Care in America project Today's health care providers have more research findings and more technology available to them than ever before. Yet recent reports have raised serious doubts about the quality of health care in America. Crossing the Quality Chasm makes an urgent call for fundamental change to close the quality gap. This book recommends a sweeping redesign of the American health care system and provides overarching principles for specific direction for policymakers, health care leaders, clinicians, regulators, purchasers, and others. In this comprehensive volume the committee offers: -- A set of performance expectations for the 21st century health care system. -- A set of 10 new rules to guide patient-clinician relationships. -- A suggested organizing framework to better align the incentives inherent in payment and accountability with improvements in quality. -- Key steps to promote evidence-based practice and strengthen clinical information systems. Analyzing health care organizations as complex systems, Crossing the Quality Chasm also documents the causes of the quality gap, identifies current practices that impede quality care, and explores how systems approaches can be used to implement change.

In many countries of the world, including Canada, arguments are made for a private-public mix in the financing and provision of health services. Proponents claim that such a mix would improve both access and quality of health care. Opponents counter that it would create a two-tiered system, narrowing the range of options available to the lower socioeconomic segments of society and ultimately harming the equitable delivery of quality health care. This book presents empirical evidence on this contentious and highly politicized issue. Uniquely, it integrates qualitative and quantitative analyses of health care reforms at various stages of implementation in three countries of Latin America. The book sheds light on important issues pertaining to accessibility and equity and, in its approach, sets precedents and provides guidelines for further comparative work on health care reform. "Reshaping Health Care" in Latin America will appeal to academics, scholars, researchers, and students in health sciences, policy studies, Latin American studies, and international development. It will also be of interest to health practitioners, policymakers, and all citizens who follow the continuing international debate on the private-public mix in our health care systems.