Pennbridge J, Berris R, Tsubota J; International Society of Technology Assessment in Health Care. Meeting.

Annu Meet Int Soc Technol Assess Health Care Int Soc Technol Assess Health Care Meet. 1997; 13: 161.

National Health Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

To rationalize health care services planning in Los Angeles County, a group of policy makers, health care providers and advocates decided that a three-part (inpatient and emergency services, ambulatory care and public health) predictive, supply and demand model (the "LA Model") was required. This paper focuses on the development and expected use of the ambulatory care component of the LA Model. Adopting the software marketing adage that successful products involve consumers in their development, it was agreed that the process of developing model components is as important as the modeling technology. From the process perspective, four different factors are considered: fiscal, structural, ideological and leadership style. Fiscally, model development had to be supported by external funding so that no group(s) were seen to have a vested interest in model outputs. Structurally, the project had to be staffed by a neutral group known to be interested in overall system improvement, potential model users formed the Steering and Data Subcommittees, and technology consultants were subcontracted to the staffing organization. Ideologically, the project sought to strengthen the entire health care system and to promote collaboration. The leadership style was low-key, inclusive and consensual. The challenge was to obtain agreement on data elements, sources and proxies and on basic model and projection assumptions among people with different levels of knowledge and different agendas. From the technological perspective, the primary challenges were to obtain, without cost, data from local and state governments, health plans and health care providers, to assure compatibility across the various data bases, and to design maximum flexibility into this model component. In order to assure broad dissemination of the ambulatory care component of the LA model, technical assistance had to be provided to the smaller community clinics and non-profit providers which had fewer staff and less sophisticated information systems.

Publication Types:

• Meeting Abstracts

Keywords:

• Ambulatory Care
• Delivery of Health Care
• Health
• Health Planning
• Health Policy
• Health Services
• Health Services Administration
• Insurance, Health
• Los Angeles
• Primary Health Care
• Quality of Health Care
• economics
• hsrmtgs

Other ID:

• HTX/98601835

UI: 102233380

From Meeting Abstracts