Can Private Purchasers Cross the Quality Chasm? Learning from the Leaders

Award Year: 2002	Investigator: Dennis Scanlon	Budget: $274,452	Categories: Quality of Care, Payment Methods
Abstract: Recent reports by the Institute of Medicine identify serious problems with the quality of health care delivery in America and look to public and private purchasers as catalysts for change. Dennis P. Scanlon, Ph.D. is interested in the extent to which private purchasers can stimulate major improvements in health care quality. His project, Can Private Purchasers Cross the Quality Chasm? Learning from the Leaders, examines the efforts of the Leapfrog Group, the National Business Coalition on Health's V8 group, the Midwest Business Group on Health, and several large corporate purchasers. All are engaged in purchasing initiatives that aim to foster market-based approaches to improving provider performance and delivering better and safer care to patients. By studying the leaders, Dr. Scanlon seeks to discover to what degree their efforts are achieving significant improvements in quality and whether alternative policy approaches are needed.