Task Force on Care Coordination

The Care Coordination Task Force is a task force of the Collaborative's Center for Multi-Stakeholder Demonstration. The task force will be exploring the role and issues associated with care coordination and the medical home. Task force efforts will include presentations by experts, discussions, and writing papers.

Task Force Co-Chairs are Julie Schilz, BSN, MBA, Colorado Beacon Consortium, Director, Community Collaboratives & Practice Transformation; and Guy Mansueto, Vice President of Marketing for Phytel.

Collaborative staffing includes Chief Executive Director Marci Nielsen and Chief Operating Officer Amy Gibson.

Quality problems and spiraling costs have resulted in widespread interest in solutions that improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the health care system. Care coordination has been identified by the Institute of Medicine as a key strategy for potentially accomplishing these improvements.

• Lack of coordination can be unsafe, even fatal, when: abnormal test results are not communicated correctly, prescriptions from multiple doctors conflict with each other, or primary care physicians do not receive hospital discharge plans for their patients;
• Uncoordinated care is also costly because of duplicated services, preventable hospital readmissions, and overuse of more intensive procedures.
• Models of care coordination are demonstrating how health care can be delivered more smoothly and efficiently, particularly for people with chronic illnesses and complex needs. Though details differ, the best of these models share some common characteristics:
• Individuals and families at the center of care planning and delivery;
• Care continuity across medical and non-medical services and from acute to long-term settings;
• Strong clinical and organizational support for effectively coordinating care;
• Appropriate payment incentives for coordinating care and integrating benefits;
• Systems for including the consumer voice in care design and plan governance.