Understanding the Alphabet Soup of Managed Care Integrated Delivery Systems

Looking Down the Road

Future Issues for Integrated Delivery Systems (IDSs)

This session examined a number of key issues and challenges affecting the future of IDSs. Mr. Bartlett Fleming of PricewaterhouseCoopers discussed the market dynamics that IDSs currently face and would likely encounter in the future, citing both market opportunities as well as the risks associated with market volatility.

Among the factors that he believed IDSs must understand and address if they are to be successful, Mr. Fleming cited an increased focus on quality measurement and management of health status, issues associated with the development of risk adjustment approaches, and increased Federal and State scrutiny and the need to develop proactive compliance plans consistent with business objectives as a number of the factors that IDSs must understand and address if they are to be successful.

Margaret VanAmringe of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Organizations (JCAHO) then discussed the following challenges in the area of quality that IDSs will face:

• Integrating a wide range of services.
• Developing an effective information infrastructure.
• Balancing accountability and consumer demands.
• Controlling costs.
• Assuring medical privacy.
• Responding to demands for performance measurement.

She then described the accountability requirements that JCAHO accreditation standards set at the IDS central office level, at the organizational component site level, and at individual practitioner site levels.

Ms. VanAmringe also discussed the Performance Measurement Coordinating Council, an initiative in which JCAHO and a number of other prominent national organizations participate, and which is seeking to develop a uniform set of performance measures for a range of different delivery system types and settings.

Current as of October 1998

Reference

Facts About Network Accreditation. Fact Sheet. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Organizations, 1998.

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Internet Citation:

Understanding the Alphabet Soup of Managed Care Integrated Delivery Systems. Workshop Summary, October 14-16, 1998, User Liaison Program. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/news/ulp/ulpmcids.htm