Comment / HFMA 2012 Quality has financial return, conference told
All health systems need to work towards a triple aim of better health, better care and lower cost, Dr Don Berwick, the leading international advocate for high quality healthcare told the HFMA annual conference.
Dr Berwick was one of the founding directors of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in the US and a former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which deliver the US publicly funded health schemes for the elderly and people with low incomes.
Dr Berwick has argued for years that high quality services can also be lower cost, but he said no one could now claim this was wishful thinking. 'You can now visit places where it exists,' he said.
He highlighted the Nuka healthcare system in Anchorage, Alaska, and patients undertaking their own haemodialysis in Sweden as examples of initiatives that had paid off both in quality outcomes and cost reductions. 'You can't say it can't be done,' he said. It can be done. It is a question of "are we willing to make the changes".'
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