A commission of national healthcare experts convened by the Washington-based Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress (CSPC) has unveiled a roadmap for a better healthcare system that includes a “health information superhighway.”
The report — entitled, A 21st Century Roadmap for Advancing America’s Health: The Path from Peril to Progress — features a list of actions needed to build a 21st century system. Commission Co-Chairs, Rear Admiral Susan Blumenthal, M.D. (ret.) and Denis Cortese, M.D. say that, despite passage of healthcare reform legislation, no one has fully focused on the next steps necessary to ensure that all Americans gain maximum value out of the current system.
The keys to accomplishing the transformation, according to Cortese, include the adoption of new value-based payment methods, promoting team-based medicine, strengthening primary care, and conducting comparative effectiveness and health systems research.
Another key component of transformation is building a health IT infrastructure.
“Just as President Eisenhower built a Federal Interstate Highway System to connect communities, boost the economy and protect national security, so must we construct a health information superhighway system in the 21st century,” says Blumenthal.
The commission also called for a focus on prevention. “Public health and prevention are also essential elements of healthcare reform, with more than 75 percent of healthcare costs in the U.S. resulting from chronic diseases that are linked to preventable factors, yet only three to five percent of the nation's health budget is spent on prevention,” says the report.
