Delivering Value: Provider Efforts to Improve the Quality and Reduce the Cost of Health Care

Growing concern regarding costs of care and health outcomes in the United States has led to widespread calls to address the issue of health care spending. Today, providers across the country are working both to improve the quality and to reduce the cost of health care. These activities span multiple care delivery settings and include care standardization and redesign, shared decision making, palliative care, care coordination, readmission reduction, patient engagement, predictive modeling, and direct cost reduction. These efforts differ from those undertaken in the past because of the availability of information technology tools to collect and analyze data, and because of the emphasis on cost reduction in conjunction with quality improvement. Although the available literature reflects only a small fraction of the provider activities currently in progress, there is cause for hope for achieving a sustainable, innovative, and value-driven health care system.