Washington, DC – An expert panel convened by the National Academy of Medicine’s Leadership Consortium for a Value & Science-Driven Health System has published a communication proposing priority opportunities for CMS’ Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) to catalyze progress toward high-quality value-based health and health care. The panel suggests that “CMMI should enhance its innovation role, adding to its current role of principal model builder, a role as principal facilitator—facilitator of system-wide alignment in aims and strategies, facilitator of the use of Medicare and CMS-wide levers for changes needed, facilitator of synergistic and supportive policies of other agencies within HHS and throughout the Administration.” It goes on to outline anchor commitments and action steps for CMMI around four fundamental goals:
- Establishing the individual beneficiary as the central reference point in all of CMMI’s activities;
- Ensuring that equity is a primary goal of model design and implementation;
- Facilitating, enabling, and investing in seamless and sustainable avenues between and among medical and social services where required and feasible; and
- Aligning payers and integrating payment for the coordinated momentum needed to promote whole-person perspectives, continuity, and individual and population results in services delivery and financing.
The expert panel communication notes that “our aim is to underscore the importance of a bold and vigorous agenda targeting the priorities important for our nation,” and summarizes how CMMI can play an enhanced leadership role in catalyzing changes important to correcting performance shortfalls in health system preparedness, effectiveness, efficiency, equity, and beneficiary experience. They also identify a number of immediate actions that CMMI could take, which you can read in their full letter.
The expert panel who authored the letter includes:
- Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH – Secretary, North Carolina Dept. of Health & Human Services
- Patrick Conway, MD – CEO, Care Solutions, Optum
- Julian Harris, MD, MSc – Partner, Healthcare Services and Technology, Deerfield
- Dora Hughes, MD, MPH – Associate Research Professor of Health Policy, George Washington University
- Peter Long, PhD – Senior Vice President of Healthcare & Community Health Transformation, Blue Shield of California
- Cindy Mann, JD – Partner, Manatt Health
- Mark B. McClellan, MD, PhD – Director, Duke-Margolis Center, Duke University
- David Muhlestein, PhD, JD, MHA, MS – Chief Strategy and Chief Research Officer, Leavitt Partners
- Amol S. Navathe, MD, PhD – Assistant Professor, Medical Ethics & Health Policy Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
- Rebecca Onie, JD – Co-Founder, The Health Initiative
- Edwin Park, JD – Research Professor, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University
- Rocco Perla, EdD – Co-Founder, The Health Initiative
- Meena Seshamani, MD, PhD – Vice President, Clinical Care Transformation, MedStar Health
Please direct any questions to leadershipconsortium@nas.edu.
Media inquiries: Dana Korsen (dkorsen@nas.edu).
