WIHI: The High Stakes of Health Care Policy

Date: May 3, 2017

Featuring:

• John E. McDonough, DrPH, MPA, Professor of Practice, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health
• John B. Chessare, MD, MPH, President and CEO, GBMC Healthcare (Baltimore, Maryland)

A lot of the quality and safety improvements that have taken place in recent years in the US — think reducing hospital-acquired infections, creating safety cultures, implementing team-based primary care — have occurred regardless of what was or wasn't happening in Washington, DC. While political debates raged on, somehow the health care quality improvement movem​​ent continued to move ahead. However, with the enactment of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, government became more of a force for change, expanding access to care and insurance, and steering health care toward better value and performance.

To understand what continues to keep some health care leaders up at night, we turned to GBMC Healthcare President and CEO, John Chessare. A member of the IHI Leadership Alliance and a strong proponent of population health and pursuing the Triple Aim, Dr. Chessare says many systems like his are changing for the better in ways most of the public knows nothing about. Dr. Chessare was joined by John McDonough, a prominent and prolific health care policy expert with decades of experience shaping, engaging with, and explaining health care policy.

With the health care policy landscape changing on a daily basis, the May 3 WIHI: The High Stakes of Health Care Policy is a great place to start to understand the journey from the Affordable Care Act to where we may be heading.