Learning Health System

Providing care for individuals with significant medical needs disproportionately drives the cost of medical care in the United States. In fact, 5 percent of patients in the U.S. account for nearly half of all health care spending. This population of high-need patients includes a diverse group of people with multiple chronic diseases and varying levels of medical, functional, social, and psychological complexity. Improving care management and outcomes for this vulnerable population, while also considering the cost of care, is possible. But it requires the active involvement of and a coordinated effort from a broad range of stakeholders across the health care continuum, and must include the integration of medical and social services. In Effective Care for High-Need Patients: Opportunities for Improving Outcomes, Value, and Health, a Special Publication from the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) developed in partnership with the Peterson Center on Healthcare, experts provide insight into care models for high-need patients that have proven results, describe a taxonomy for segmenting the high-need patient population to better match patient need with effective care approaches, and identify opportunities for improving care delivery across multiple sectors.

The result of a collaboration between the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, this NAM Special Publication summarizes and builds upon a meeting series in which a multistakeholder group of experts discussed the potential of clinical decision support (CDS) to transform care delivery by ameliorating the burden that expanding clinical knowledge and care and choice complexity place on the finite time and attention of clinicians, patients, and members of the care team. This summary also includes highlights from discussions about addressing the barriers to realizing the full benefits of CDS-facilitated value improvement. Optimizing Strategies for Clinical Decision Support: Summary of Meeting Series identifies the need for a continuously learning health system driven by the seamless and rapid generation, processing, and practical application of the best available evidence for clinical decision-making, and lays out a series of actionable, collaborative next steps to optimize strategies for adoption and use of clinical decision support.