By Stephen Waldron
Health care leaders gathered at Harvard Law School on April 26 to discuss opportunities to redesign care delivery for people with serious illness. These efforts are informed by the shift to value-based care, which has been championed by innovators in the advanced care movement.
The event was part of the Project for Advanced Care and Health Policy, a collaboration between the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC).
Featured speakers for the event included Diane Meier, MD, Director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care and Tom Feeley, MD, Senior Fellow at Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. Drs. Meier and Feeley shared their insight on the Primary Cares Initiative, recently announced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and explored new approaches for supporting people with advanced illness and their loved ones.
During her remarks, Dr. Meier also underscored the value of palliative care and its ability to reduce avoidable spending and utilization in all settings while improving quality of life and symptom management. Specifically, a 2017 study, published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine found that palliative care reduced total costs by over 35 percent when delivered in a home setting.
She noted that raising awareness of these benefits among those leading Accountable Care Organizations and patient-centered medical homes can be a challenge.
“It’s a mindset thing. It’s not data-driven,” Dr. Meier said. “The data are there and they are really compelling.”
This post was originally published on the B-TAC: The Blog to Transform Advanced Care. Read the rest of it there!
Stephen Waldron is the Communications Manager for the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC).
