Overview: http://ilp.mit.edu/conference.jsp?confid=86&tabname=overview
The continuing rise of health care costs in the U.S. (almost 20% of GDP), with as much as 30% considered wasteful spending, threatens the future financial stability of the U.S. Furthermore, the implementation of the recent Affordable Care Act in the U.S. presents major challenges to the healthcare industry and requires a fundamental transformation of the traditional healthcare delivery models and health systems—systems that include complex organizations often driven by contradictory incentives. Healthcare delivery systems will have to shift their focus from merely providing care to ill patients, to proactively managing the health of populations and communities. The need to serve many new, currently underserved communities of patients, will add a tremendous load to the healthcare delivery systems, which are already heavily utilized. This calls for nothing less than a fundamental change in the health cost-effectiveness equation, and the design of new models of care and health management that will deeply engage patients in different ways and in different locations. These models are likely to require transformational organizational changes, process changes, as well as the extensive use of analytics, IT and other technologies. These changes will have an impact on patients, employers, and health care payers and providers.