Evolving Concepts of Patient-Centered Care and the Assessment of Patient Care Experiences: Optimism and Opposition

This article summarise, a personal view of the author (Paul D. Cleary dean of the Yale School of Public Health), on the available research, concerning measurement of “patient satisfaction” and “patient care experience”. Author argues that patient experiences measurement efforts are being devoted to providing high-quality patient-centered care. Some indicators and surveys are discussed in terms of their reliability, validity and correlation across individuals and settings with other quality indicators.

Special attention is paid to the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS), launched in 1995 by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The CAHPS surveys are nowadays tailored to different care settings, so that results can be used to help identify aspects of care that can be targeted to improve patient experiences.

Some contrasting arguments are also discussed on the ability of patients to evaluate the quality of their care. Author proposes a review of currently ...

The new frontier of strategic alliances in health care: New partnerships under accountable care organizations

Accountable care organizations (ACOs) and similar reforms aim to improve coordination between health care providers; however, due to the fragmented nature of the US health care system, successful cordination will hinge in large part on the ability of health care organizations to successfully partner across organizational boundaries. This article findings suggests that the success of the ACO model will hinge in large part upon the success of new partnerships, with important implications for understanding ACO readiness and capabilities, the relatively small savings achieved to date by ACO programs, and the path to providers bearing more risk for population health management. 

The new frontier of strategic alliances in health care: New partnerships under accountable care organizations

Accountable care organizations (ACOs) and similar reforms aim to improve coordination between health care providers; however, due to the fragmented nature of the US health care system, successful coordination will hinge in large part on the ability of health care organizations to successfully partner accross organizational boundaries, however, little is known about new partnerships formed under the ACO model.