Patient Care
The academic medical community - comprised of teaching hospitals, faculty practice organizations and their affiliated teaching physicians, residents, and students - plays a unique and essential role in the US healthcare system. Academic medical centers are pioneers in treating complex conditions, centers of innovative research, and leaders in educating the next generation of physicians. To learn more about the work of this community, please visit the key topics below:
Clinical Transformation and Quality
The AAMC and its member institutions drive some of the most innovative care redesign programs across the nation. The AAMC facilitates a number of initiatives ranging from managing risk and implementation of new payment models to improving communication between primary care and specialty care. Learn more about some of these initiatives below:
Project CORE uses EMR-based tools, known as uyr and enhanced referrals, to improve quality of care and the patient experience, resulting in improved access to care. Currently, over 1 million primary care patients at participating AMCs will benefit from this timely clinical input from specialists, in addition to greater convenience and savings. Learn more about Project CORE.
Alternative Payments are an increasingly important part of the clinical transformation landscape as we move from a fee-for-service model to a value based payment structure. The AAMC is a facilitator-convener for the bundled payments for care improvement (BPCI) program and has formed a collaborative to support the engagement of AMCs in the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) model. Get more information on the AAMC's work on BPCI, CJR collaborative, and other initiatives related to bundled payments.
High-Risk-Patient Identification: Strategies for Success was a collaborative effort between the AAMC and the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations (NAACOS). The purpose of the project was to enhance the dialogue about and the practice of risk assessment for hospitals, physician practices, and integrated networks that assume financial risk in alternative payment models. The AAMC and NAACOS contracted Validate Health to summarize the project's findings in this report 
, which is divided into three sections: Provider Strategies and Lessons Learned, Summary of Selected Resources, and Assessing System Solutions.
High-Functioning Primary Care Residency Clinics: Building Blocks for Providing Excellent Care and Training highlights the efforts of numerous residency programs to transform the practice models in their ambulatory clinic settings. The report is organized around the components of transformed primary care models – the Building Blocks of High-Performing Primary Care – and provides academic leaders with several examples of residency programs that have succeeded in creating a better clinic model for their residents. The report is a collaborative effort between the Center for Excellence in Primary Care (CEPC) at the University of California, San Francisco and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
Medicare Hospital and Physician Payment
Through comment letters, analyses, webinars, and other activities, the AAMC engages with policymakers on Federal regulations that affect payment and quality related policies for teaching hospitals and teaching physicians. Find additional information on the AAMC’s regulatory priorities. The AAMC will review and respond to the CY 2017 MACRA proposed rule, which was released in April, 2016. Please check out the AAMC's MACRA page.
Graduate Medical Education
The AAMC has been making progress in a number of areas on the Optimizing GME initiative, a comprehensive five-year roadmap to drive innovation in the delivery of graduate medical education and respond to emerging trends that are demanding rapid and simultaneous changes in medical education and health care delivery. Learn more about the Optimizing GME initiative.
Reports, Data, and Analytics
The AAMC supports teaching hospitals with hospital-specific analysis, member data tools, and research on current topics. Through our data analyses, we cover quality measurement, payment issues, Medicare policy, operational data, and publications on timely topics, along with custom reports and benchmarking.
Workforce Studies conducts research and convenes experts on physician workforce issues, such as projections of the future physician supply and demand, state and specialty workforce issues, undergraduate and graduate medical education trends, and innovations in care delivery. Read our latest publications and explore our latest data.
Integrating Quality
The AAMC supports member teaching hospitals and medical schools in achieving safe, high-quality, and high-value health care implemented through inter-professional education, research, and clinical practices. The AAMC offers programs to help members meet their goals of improving and integrating quality across clinical, education, and research missions. Find more information on the Integrating Quality initiative.
AAMC Affinity Groups
The AAMC supports a number of professional development groups for individuals in leadership positions at member medical schools, teaching hospitals, and faculty practice organizations. View the full list of AAMC affinity groups.