A Checklist for Policy Makers
Pay for value – deliver better health and better results for all
- Tie payments and incentives to value and outcomes
- Help clinicians develop the core competencies they need to succeed
- Advance care and payment models that integrate medical and non-medical services
Empower people – democratize action for health
- Link care with personal context
- Ensure health care information is available, understandable, and useful for all
- Promote effective telehealth tools and clinician links to patients and families
- Guarantee patients access, ownership, and protection of their health data
Activate communities – collaborate locally to mobilize resources for health
- Invest in local leadership and capacity to drive community health collaboration and initiatives
- Strengthen community-based assessment and strategies targeting high-need individuals
- Build strong state-based capacity to guide, assist, and coordinate local health efforts
Connect care – implement seamless digital interfaces for the best care
- Ensure clinical data accessibility and use through infrastructure and regulatory changes
- Enforce principles and standards for end-to-end (system/clinician/individual) interoperability
- Implement data and IT strategies that promote a continuously learning health system
Measure what matters most – use consistent core metrics
- Focus reliably and consistently on the factors most important to better health and care
- Create the national capacity to identify, standardize, implement, and revise core measures
- Invest in the science of performance measurement
Modernize skills – train 21st-century health care and science workforces
- Reform health workforce training to emphasize teams, innovation, and continuous improvement
- Create new education and training pathways to maintain a robust science workforce
Accelerate real-world evidence – integrate clinical care data for progress
- Draw on real-world clinical data to accelerate knowledge and improve care, outcomes, and innovation
- Foster a culture of data sharing by strengthening incentives and standards
- Partner with patients and families to invest them in evidence generation and data sharing
Advance science – forge innovation-ready research and partnerships
- Promote practices and policies for scientific innovation and collaboration
- Support an adaptive and patient-engaged regulatory framework
- Foster cross-disciplinary and public-private partnerships for continuous learning
For the complete Vital Directions collection and related resources, visit NAM.edu/VitalDirections.
