October 2019 | Volume 1
MOVING INTELLIGENT CHANGE FORWARD
INNOVATION DIGEST
"Patient-centered" is just a marketing tag line unless the patient is actually involved. Whether you’re designing an app, delivering care, defining benefits and payment structures or creating new innovations to treat and cure, starting with "who’s it for" is essential. Sadly, the business of healthcare doesn’t always stay true to this maxim. Asking and involving the patient first at every step is hard work. So what. Be the agent of change wherever you sit.
Just Putting Patients At The Center Of Health Care Is Not Enough To Improve Care
The Institute of Medicine’s 2001  Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century  report defined patient-centered care as “providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values, and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.” This report also identified patient-centered care as one of six elements essential to a high-quality health care system.
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Pathway To Patient-Centered Measurement For Accountability
Much of the focus in health policy circles and the media has been on the price transparency provisions of the recently released executive order on improving price and quality transparency. However, the executive order also calls for the establishment of a health quality roadmap that outlines a process for alignment of measures across all federal programs and care settings, adoption of common measures, and elimination of “low-value or counterproductive measures.”
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A Shadowy Industry Group Shapes Food Policy Around the World
When the Indian government bowed to powerful food companies last year and postponed its decision to put red warning labels on unhealthy packaged food, officials also sought to placate critics of the delay by creating an expert panel to review the proposed labeling system, which would have gone far beyond what other countries have done in the battle to combat soaring obesity rates.
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Mental health apps are scooping up your most sensitive data. Will you benefit?
An app for monitoring people with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia is so precise it can track when a patient steps outside for a cigarette break or starts a romantic relationship — and where that new partner lives. Another app, meant to screen for suicidality, analyzes not only text message metadata, but also the content of the conversations.
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Rural America faces a healthcare access crisis
In the last 10 years, more than 100 rural hospitals in the U.S. have closed and another 600-plus rural facilities remain at risk of closing.
Of course not all existing hospitals should stay open. They might be too big or too obsolete for today’s needs and technology. In some cases there are good reasons to close. For others there are opportunities for modernization.
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Nobel Laureate: Docs Must Insist on Evidence in Medicine
Doctors should demand more research into evidence-based treatments, Paul Krugman, PhD, Nobel laureate in economics, said here. "We're remarkably ignorant about what works in medicine, and that's something doctors really should be demanding, that we have much more evidence-based treatments," Krugman, who is also professor of economics at the City University of New York, said Tuesday at an event sponsored by the New York Academy of Medicine.
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‘Value’ of Care Was a Big Goal. How Did It Work Out?
For most of its history, Medicare paid for health care in ways that encouraged more services — whether they improved health or not.
Critics called it an emphasis on volume, not value.
The Affordable Care Act was intended to change that, and Medicare started a number of programs to do so, including several new ones this year. Nearly a decade after passage of the A.C.A., is value-based payment working?
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Passion + Quality = Change That Matters
  
I embrace the powerful opportunities in our evolving health care landscape. I founded Momentum Health Strategies to be a catalyst for change through continuous learning, diverse engagement and thoughtful policy and practice initiatives. I deliver innovative, strategic thinking and a passion for improving the patient experience. My personal drive and dedication to high-quality results will help you navigate the competitive terrain you face and convert your vision to action.

Momentum Health Strategies

Jennifer L Bright, MPA
(703) 628 - 0534
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