Akron Health Innovators Bring Accountable Care to Their Community
Across the country, dozens of healthcare systems are forming so-called accountable care organizations aimed at improving patient care and outcomes while also lowering costs. Innovators in Akron, Ohio, have turned this concept in a whole new direction by creating what they call an accountable care community. Here’s how one leader in Akron put it:
“Let’s not just be accountable for patients that walk through the doors of hospitals. Let’s be accountable to everyone who lives in our community.”
Those words come from Janine Janosky, vice president of Austen Bioinnovation Institute’s Center for Community Health Improvement. Her organization has formed their accountable care community by forging a partnership that brings together Akron’s major hospitals, medical schools, and health systems, along with scores of community and service organizations, all with the goal of improving the health of the entire community.
The group is aiming high, seeking to improve community conditions and reduce the number of people who develop chronic diseases and need ongoing, expensive care. For the fourth part of a series of interviews with health innovators, PI’s Rob Waters visited Akron and interviewed Janosky. Read that interview here.