The study, by the Health Research & Educational Trust, was based on interviews with the high performing health systems and came up with the following best practices.
- focus on continuous improvement;
- drive towards dramatic improvement or perfection versus incremental change;
- emphasize patient-centeredness;
- embrace internal and external transparency on performance indicators;
- have clearly defined values and expectations for accountability of results; and
- leadership focuses on execution and implementation.
However, no one factor clearly separated the top systems from others, and attributes of high-performing systems also existed in at least some lower-performing systems.
The study found high performance in a wide variety of system types — large and small; regional, multi-regional and nationwide; and differing levels of teaching components.
Read the Commonwealth Fund’s report on hospital systems.
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