[7] He is the Principal Investigator of a National Institute of Aging T-32 grant for MD-PhD's in Health Policy, Economics, and Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Michael Kobernick Jillian Shank Jefferson Medical College As a result of years of research with the RAND Corporation and Harvard University, Joseph Newhouse has become extremely passionate about the instability of our nation's health care system.
Prior to proceeding with an explanation of Newhouse's issues that lead to poor performance, it is important to understand the definitions of quality from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and in economic terms.
[10] In economic terms, Alan M. Garber and Jonathan Skinner have explored the principles of productive and allocative inefficiency.
The causes are “high prices for inputs, poorly restrained incentives for overutilization, and a tendency to adopt expensive medical innovations rapidly, even when evidence of effectiveness is weak or absent”.
In focusing on technology, Newhouse indicates that each health care system must keep up with new devices, medicine, and even abide by nationwide use of the EMR to make the most informed decisions for each individual.
Administered prices are determined between the insurer and provider leading to the input cost adapting to the payment, not necessarily the needs of the patient or quality of care.
[10] Additional programs to address Newhouse's problems include payment reform in Medicare to restructure programs, offering a wider range of services, and moving from fee for service to fee for value, which then may result in enhanced engagement of the consumer.5 Increasing the roles and responsibilities of the independent payment advisory board may assist in payment reform as well,[15] in addition to utilizing an electronic medical record to develop reporting systems that may be used for physician and patient evaluation and care gap closure.
Newhouse does an excellent job of describing the problems surrounding the quality chasm and suggesting many interventions to try and cross it.