GCU Health and Medical Discussion

To enhance quality and cost effectiveness, an ACO needs to be able to: 1. Care for patients across the continuum of care, in different institutional settings as well as the home, 2. Plan, prospectively, for budgets and resource needs, 3. Effectively use evidence-based protocols and comparative effectiveness research, 4. Develop and support comprehensive, valid, and reliable measurement of performance. . Another benefit of ACOs is they create incentives for hospitals and physicians to reduce unnecessary admissions through better disease prevention and primary care; reduce preventable readmissions through better coordinated care; and reduce unnecessary and costly use of hospital emergency rooms (Haas, 2011)