Perspectives on Evaluating Innovations to Support Rapid-Cycle Change
<p>The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation was created by the Affordable Care Act to promote innovations in health care payment and delivery that can help improve quality and lower costs. The Innovation Center has been given unprecedented authority to take action, but faces a significant challenge: developing, testing, and disseminating promising approaches in an extremely short time frame. </p>
<p>A new <a href="/publications/issue-briefs/2011/jun/identifying-monitoring-and-assessing-promising-innovations-using">Commonwealth Fund issue brief</a>, by Marsha Gold, Sc.D., David Helms, Ph.D., and Stuart Guterman, focuses on three critical requirements the Innovation Center must address to meet its objectives: </p>
<ol>
<li>Focusing on change that matters; </li>
<li>Documenting innovation to support effective learning and spread; and </li>
<li>Generating the evidence needed to support broad-based policy change. </li>
</ol>
<p>The authors recommend caution in developing and evaluating approaches, but say that the Innovation Center must not stifle all attempts to improve the health system in the name of methodological rigor. "Risks—albeit informed risks—must be taken to improve the health system and avoid the ever-intensifying pressure, not only on federal and state governments but also on businesses and households, as a result of increasing health spending," they concluded.</p>
<p>Read <a href="/publications/issue-briefs/2011/jun/identifying-monitoring-and-assessing-promising-innovations-using">Identifying, Monitoring, and Assessing Promising Innovations: Using Evaluation to Support Rapid-Cycle Change</a> for perspectives from the research community on the Innovation Center's critical issues and challenges. <br /></p>