PROMISE: Our kitties will never sit on top of content. Please turn off your ad blocker for our site.
puuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrr
Quality Digest
Published: Tuesday, July 8, 2008 - 05:41
Placing a spotlight directly on the driving forces that are challenging existing health care delivery systems—including globalization, consumerism, changing demographics, and lifestyles, diseases that are more expensive to treat, the proliferation of medical technologies and treatments, financial constraints, resource shortages, increasingly unrealistic societal expectations and norms, and an absence of information systems, among others—IBM stated that the only cure for health systems around the world is a fundamental transformation of health care.
“Historically, care-delivery organizations (CDOs) could declare broad and abstract targets or even attempt to be all things to all citizens and still compete effectively,” says Jim Adams, executive director of IBM Center for Healthcare Management. “But in the future, we believe it will be harder to maintain an undifferentiated service-delivery model, whether it be a public or private healthcare system model.”
In the near term, the study claims such critical transformation will be frustrated by a series of adjustments that will fall far short of the ultimate goal of piecemeal, incremental approaches to health care change, sometimes with poor results and unintended consequences.
Instead, the increasing focus on value, the rising need to activate responsible citizens, and the changing requirements of health promotion and care delivery will force many CDOs to adopt and develop service delivery models with new and sharper strategic focus. Regardless of their chosen service delivery models, IBM predicts that CDOs will also require a core set of enhanced and expanded competencies.
However, as demands on care providers shift, IBM predicts that the models for promoting health and delivering care will follow suit. CDOs and clinicians will need to develop or improve a set of underlying competencies to successfully implement the service delivery models. The new study recommends five such strategic competencies: Empowering and activating consumer-citizens, collaborating and integrating, innovating, optimizing operational efficiencies, and enabling these through information technology.
The study closes by offering a course of action for CDOs:
• Identify the service delivery models and competencies needed to prosper in the new order.
• Assess their readiness in the competencies needed to implement the new or redefined service-delivery models.
• Develop and execute plans to transition to the new delivery models and develop new competencies required to support them.
“Status quo is not an option or healthcare systems in the U.S. and many other countries,” says Dan Pelino, general manager of IBM Global Healthcare and Life Sciences. “Ultimately, the transformation of healthcare systems will require commitment and follow-through on coordinated, collaborative efforts among key stakeholders, particularly CDOs and clinicians at the epicenter of efforts to create more value-focused health care.”
IBM's new study is an extension of Healthcare 2015: Win-Win or Lose-Lose, which was the company's original work detailing the broad case for health care system transformation. It was published in October 2006. Another study, “Healthcare 2015 and U.S. Health Plans: New roles, new competencies,” published last September, presented a forward-looking view of required transformation in the health benefits segment.
For more information, visit www-03.ibm.com/industries/healthcare/doc/content/news/pressrelease/3908849105.html.
Quality Digest does not charge readers for its content. We believe that industry news is important for you to do your job, and Quality Digest supports businesses of all types. However, someone has to pay for this content. And that’s where advertising comes in. Most people consider ads a nuisance, but they do serve a useful function besides allowing media companies to stay afloat. They keep you aware of new products and services relevant to your industry. All ads in Quality Digest apply directly to products and services that most of our readers need. You won’t see automobile or health supplement ads. So please consider turning off your ad blocker for our site. Thanks, For 40 years Quality Digest has been the go-to source for all things quality. Our newsletter, Quality Digest, shares expert commentary and relevant industry resources to assist our readers in their quest for continuous improvement. Our website includes every column and article from the newsletter since May 2009 as well as back issues of Quality Digest magazine to August 1995. We are committed to promoting a view wherein quality is not a niche, but an integral part of every phase of manufacturing and services.IBM—Redefining Value, Engaging Consumers
(IBM: Armonk, New York) -- IBM’s vision statement, "Healthcare 2015 and Care Delivery: Delivery models refined, competencies" defined calls for collaboration among providers to achieve new milestones in defining, measuring and delivering value across national and global health care systems.
• Fully recognize the need for and help to shape a more patient-centric, value-based, accountable, affordable, and sustainable health care system.
Our PROMISE: Quality Digest only displays static ads that never overlay or cover up content. They never get in your way. They are there for you to read, or not.
Quality Digest Discuss
About The Author
Quality Digest
© 2023 Quality Digest. Copyright on content held by Quality Digest or by individual authors. Contact Quality Digest for reprint information.
“Quality Digest" is a trademark owned by Quality Circle Institute, Inc.