Overview

Access to high technology and specialized care is an essential element of a balanced health care system for advanced nations. Therefore, the effects of changes in the health care economy on access to specialized services, and the cost and quality of those services, are major concerns for health policymakers. Academic health centers (AHCs), consisting of medical schools and their closely affiliated clinical facilities, play a pivotal role in the provision of specialized services, which in turn are linked inextricably with AHCs' research and educational missions.

The current, ongoing transformation of the health care system poses serious challenges to the nation's AHCs and their missions. In its two previous reports, Leveling the Playing Field: Financing the Missions of Academic Health Centers and From Bench to Bedside: The Research Mission of Academic Health Centers, The Commonwealth Fund Task Force on Academic Health Centers examined the overall financing of AHCs and the future of AHCs' research mission. In this report, the Task Force examines the patient care mission of AHCs with respect to the development and delivery of highly specialized, technologically complex services.

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