Discussion Board
The Robert Woods Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Roadmaps to Health Winners are demonstrating the National Prevention Strategy priority areas in their work/programs by creating a culture of health within their backyards and coming up with innovative strategies of improving community health. The winners had innovative ideas on creating healthier places to live. The winners had remarkable community partnerships which help people to live healthier lives. It is notable that the winners comprised people who came together with strong leadership, a common vision, as well as commitment to making long-lasting and desired changes that are enabling people to live healthy, long lives.
When Dr. Jeffery Brenner describes what is currently occurring as a Blockbuster Moment for the healthcare system, he means that disruptive change, that is, the health reform, will bring better care for sick people. If this model is scaled up such that as many hospital beds or specialists are no longer needed, then it would be a major problem. He meant that if better care is going to be delivered to the sick, and then it would be necessary to balance the federal budget, states to balance their budgets, and businesses not becoming bankrupt or dropping health care coverage. This would result in a significant change.
The system redesigns highlighted in both the RWJF Roadmaps projects and the Camden Coalition are bending the cost curve for health care by controlling and reducing the cost of health care. The system highlighted by the Camden Coalition essentially entails having an intensive care physician actually coming into the home of the high-cost patient in order to bring better care to the patient and lower costs. This makes the patient feel like he/she is being taken care of. This helps in controlling health care costs, and hence bending the cost curve for health care. The home visits to most costly patients helped to lower costs and provide better care. The system redesigns in the RWJF Roadmap projects comprise strategies which are essentially aimed at improving the quality and reducing the costs of health care and other health services. RWJF is committed to decreasing profligate spending, as well as increasing the effectiveness and reach of basic health services.
A tipping point is understood as the crucial point of an evolving situation which results in a new and irremediable development. I believe that we are at a tipping point in our local health care in terms of how care is designed and delivered. This is primarily because of the health reform, the Affordable Care Act, which has put consumers back in charge of their health care. In essence, this law will increase the affordability and quality of health insurance, and lower the rate of the uninsured by expanding both private and public insurance coverage. It will also reduce the costs of healthcare for both the government and individuals, guarantee more choice, and improve the quality of care for every American (Freymann, 2014).Once this law is fully implemented, it will have significant, lasting and irreversible impact regarding the delivery of health care.
Dr. Brenner began his work by identifying hot spots –hot spots by disease, hot spot buildings, hot spots for crime, and hot spots by patients– and empowering others to become hot spotters of population health risks. This is actually happening in my health care organization in the sense that the leadership therein has instituted measures that encourage all employees to be watchful of any hotspots including hotspots by patient and hotspots by disease, and report to the relevant office as soon as possible for the appropriate steps to be taken to address the risk. It is also happening in my community since there are personnel in charge of identifying and dealing with the hotspots. For instance, police officers are addressing the hotspots for crime.
Reference
Freymann, S. (2014). Affordable Care Act: Lifting the Curtain on Health Care Costs. Physician Executive, 40(2), 78.