Dialogue on ACO Draft Rules

Dan Fox's recent post on the new draft rules for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) caught the attention of Charles Fahey, who observed that "multiple agencies each with its own agenda and funding streams as well as overlapping general purposes....leaves the health of the population as a whole as no one's responsibility." Fahey's comment has relevance to today's post on the accountability framework proposed by the IOM and also brings to mind a couple of pieces in the archives (see Obstacles to Population Health Policy: Is Anyone Accountable? and Do We Need a Population Health Super-Integrator?)

This policy and funding integration question remains one of the largest challenges for our field, since improvement requires action from multiple determinant sectors such as health care, public health, health behaviors, and those influencing the social and physical environments.