Health System Transformation
Community Catalyst believes everyone deserves high-quality health care that fully serves their needs and helps them lead healthier lives. We are working to transform our health system to become one that is truly people-centered and can best move us toward these goals.
The United States spends trillions on health care each year, but fails to get enough “bang for our buck,” in terms of health status and outcomes. Our health care system is marred by excessive prices, variable quality, inefficiency and fragmentation. And, unfortunately, having coverage and access to care doesn’t guarantee it will be quality care. Significant health disparities and unequal access to quality care – especially for vulnerable populations – continue to be major shortcomings of the system.
Even as consumer advocates continue the important work of ensuring full implementation of the Affordable Care Act and progress in increasing coverage, they must also focus on a significant and growing challenge: the rapid transformation already underway in our health care financing and delivery system.
Community Catalyst has developed a Health System Transformation agenda that directly tackles the underlying causes of rising health care costs: structural weaknesses in the financing and delivery of health care in the United States, and the health status of the American people. We combine practicable, credible, implementable, short and long-term solutions to address causes of rising health care costs. Our proposals do not shift additional costs onto consumers, but instead provide solutions for better care at lower costs.
Community Catalyst promotes policies that:
- increase consumers’ access to quality primary and preventive care
- strengthen infrastructure by rewarding care coordination
- encourage innovation and efficiency within the delivery system
Shifting the health care system towards more person- and family-driven care is an important aspect of providing better health care for all. Not only does fragmented, poor quality care contribute to poor health outcomes, it contributes to higher health care costs. We work to get more value out of every health care dollar by identifying and advocating for policies that improve the quality of care while containing the growth of health care spending.
As with any paradigm shift, this will be no quick and easy process. It will require the ongoing participation of consumers, who should be at the center of the health system. Community Catalyst is committed to creating structures at the policy, delivery system and individual levels that enable consumers to draw on their experiences in order to shape health care delivery and financing reform.