uft-a - The Business Case for Quality: A Unified Field Theory Applied to Health Care Alice G. Gosfield P.C. line_2px.gif (105 bytes) The Reinertsen Group

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The Business Case for Quality:
A Unified Field Theory Applied to Health Care


New payment model explicitly consistent with UFT-A principles has been developed! Click here for more information.

The need to improve quality in the American health care system has never been more urgent. With health insurance reform now a reality, the need to deliver better healthcare value is even greater. The legislation reflects that current initiatives, including "pay for performance" programs, are not yet generating enough improvement in health care. A major reason is the failure of policy, markets and regulation to engage physicians, arguably the most significant drivers of what care is delivered. James L. Reinertsen, M.D. and Alice G. Gosfield Esq., have joined in a project which unites their unique backgrounds, expertise and perspectives in an effort to improve health care through a stronger business case for quality that will engage physicians. Our original proposal posits how to use clinical practice guidelines to drive physician payment and many other aspects of the health care system. Our theory is set forth in a major white paper, "Doing Well by Doing Good: Improving the Business Case For Quality" which offers five core principles which can revolutionize health care delivery by creating a unified approach to payment, documentation, billing, institutional organization, and more through evidence based medicine and patient-centered care. These principles are also directly relevant to efforts at clinical integration and collaboration by physicians with each other, as well as across the delivery continuum. Physician engagement and clinical integration around quality will be essential to fulfill the expectations of the many quality improvement initiatives in the health reform legislation. Pressures from health reform have made it clear that physician engagement around quality and now-- far more intensely—value will be essential for physician success and survival as well as for the success of their significant clinical partners – hospitals and health systems. We have written a new white paper, " ", which calls on physicians to clinically integrate with each other.

This website was launched in 2003. Some progress has been made on the issues we address. The five principles we published then remain relevant in the new and fast changing environment which will require physicians - and those who seek their engagement - to step up and proactively change the way care is delivered.

  1. standardize to the science as much as possible;
  2. simplify the system and processes to give time back, particularly to physicians;
  3. make administrative processes as clinically relevant as possible, beginning with a clinically relevant payment model;
  4. engage the patient around the science and the processes of care;
  5. fix accountability at the locus of control for reporting and measurement.

Physician engagement around quality is still a critical challenge. The challenges of broader, improved clinical collaboration to produce better quality, more efficiently, can be met. This website, a listserv, our publications, speeches, available presentations and consulting are intended to facilitate applying our theory and the five principles (a “Unified Field Theory –Applied”) UFT-A toward that end. We encourage you to explore our website and consider how we can improve health care through this work. We welcome your participation in this dialogue.

last updated: August 13, 2018

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