Description

This report is a collaborative assessment on strategies for better serving high-need patients undertaken by the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), through its Leadership Consortium for a Value & Science-Driven Health System (the Leadership Consortium), in partnership with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), The Commonwealth Fund, and the Peterson Center on Healthcare. The project activities were overseen by an independent planning committee and included: 1) planning three workshops to explore the state of knowledge and action; 2) conducting a literature review of the key studies on the care of high-need patients; and 3) synthesizing the work and proceedings that reflected critical needs and common themes on effective approaches, care models, and possible policy actions to address those needs. The following issues are discussed: 1) key characteristics of high-need patients; 2) use of a patient categorization scheme—or a taxonomy—as a tool to inform and target care; 3) promising care models and attributes to better serve this patient population, as well as insights on “matching” these models to specific patient groups; and 4) areas of opportunity for policy-level action to support the spread and scale of evidence-based programs. The report concludes by exploring common themes and opportunities for action in the field.