January 20, 2016 | California Healthcare Foundation

Challenging the Flow: Data Infrastructure for Population Health in the Safety Net

by Mark Elson and Alex Horowitz

As health care transitions from an episodic to a population health model of care, advances in data standards and interoperability are making data increasingly portable across provider organizations and information technology (IT) systems. These improvements require concomitant advances in infrastructure to channel and manage the flow. Read More…

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June, 2014 | BROOKINGS

HEALTH POLICY ISSUE BRIEF

by Mark McClellan, Ross White, Larry Kocot, and Farzad Mostashari

How to Improve the Medicare Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Program

Recent data suggest that Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are improving important aspects of care and some are achieving early cost savings, but there is a long way to go. Not all ACOs will be successful at meeting the quality and cost aims of accountable care. The private sector has to date allowed more flexibility in terms of varying risk arrangements—there are now over 250 accountable care arrangements with private payers in all parts of the country—with notable success in some cases, particularly in ACOs that have been able to move farther away from fee-for-service payments. Future growth of the Medicare ACO program will depend on providers having the incentives to become an ACO and the flexibility to assume different levels of risk, ranging from exclusively upside arrangements to partial or fully capitated payment models. Read More…