Institute of Medicine Committee Sets 20 Healtcare Priorities
In January, a committee of the Institute of Medicine identified a list of 20 priorities for improvement for the U.S. health care system in response to the Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century.
This report published findings by IOM that poor quality health care is not due to the absence of effective treatments or the absence of knowledge of existing treatments, but is caused by a disjointed health care system—the failure to put treatments and knowledge into practice.
The IOM “Committee on Identifying Priority Areas for Quality Improvement” used a framework and criteria of “impact, improvability and inclusiveness” established by Portland’s own Foundation for Accountability to target areas in health care where system improvements could close the quality performance gap.
The Institute of Medicine is an independent, non profit organization established to offer objective, scientific information to guide health and science policy in government, corporate sectors and the professions. The following is the IOM committee’s list.
| 1. Care coordination | 11. Ischemic heart disease (emphasizing prevention, reducing recurring events, and improving functional capacity) |
| 2. Self-management andhealth literacy | 12. Screening and treating major depression |
| 3. Asthma | 13. Medication management |
| 4. Evidence-based cancer screening with a focus on colorectal and cervical cancer | 14. Preventing nosocomial infection and improving surveillance |
| 5. Children with special health care needs | 15. Pain control in advanced cancer |
| 6. Diabetes (especially management of the disease at an early stage) | 16. Appropriate care for pregnancy and childbirth |
| 7. End-of-life with advanced organ system failure | 17. Severe and persistent mental illness |
| 8. Frailty associated with old age | 18. Early prevention and rehabilitation for strokes |
| 9. Hypertension | 19. Tobacco dependence treatment in adults |
| 10. Immunization of children and adults | 20. Obesity |