How do we engage patients, coordinate care, improve quality, lower costs and share savings all at 
once? A group of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) will be in Baltimore this week discussing this and other topics on establishing and sustaining ACOs.
One of the challenges of forming and sustaining ACOs is establishing shared goals and shared knowledge. I was involved in the airline industry earlier in my career and was part of the team who automated the On-time Departure and other performance metric bonuses at then Continental Airlines. Prior to this, I had dabbled in Change Management and Quality Assurance topics but this was my first real experience with “what you measure is what you improve” or “pay for performance”.
The ACO challenge is similar to the challenges of Performance Management within the diverse units of a hospital but it is complicated by the many different types of organizations (and communication languages) that may be partnering. I’m really looking forward to learning more about ACOs and how we can apply clinical analytics to costing solutions to measure and report shared savings.
Stay tuned for updates!
Follow me on twitter @teriemc
