HRHCare, a health center based in Peekskill that serves low-income patients, has joined a task force that is trying to create more cost-effective patient care.
Joining the Health Care Transformation Task Force will help the health center “ensure that more patients in medically underserved areas are receiving the care they need,” Anne Kauffman Nolan, president and CEO, said in a press release.
The Health Care Transformation Task Force is a kind of think tank that identifies the best health care practices. It intends to develop policies and programs that would expand health care services while keeping costs down.
The task force brings together players from every sector of health care, including patients, medical staff, insurers, and suppliers. Each player in the health care market has different incentives, to either keep costs down or prices up. AÂ key goal is figuring out ways to encourage everyone to hold down costs, while maintaining or improving health care, and share the savings.
More cancer screening programs, for example, might cost more money upfront but, by detecting the disease early, save money and lives eventually. Better screening for diabetes might help a patient stop the disease before it takes hold or treat it more effectively before the ill effects and the costs spiral out of control.
The task force expects to see tangible results by 2020.
HRHCare is a nonprofit organization that was founded 40 years ago to provide medical care to people in Peekskill who had not been well served. It is one of the largest such community health providers in the country, serving more than 135,000 patients. It runs 26 health centers from Albany to Long Island.
