Improving the population's health, maximizing patient care and controlling health services expenditures: Is an integrated health system the solution?

Faced with escalating health care costs, and confronted with an intractable economic crisis, the US and several other countries are reevaluating their current health system and searching for effective strategies to reduce costs while enhancing and maintaining health.  There is a growing belief  that one strategy to effectively maximize the use of resources while reducing the cost of care would be to prevent morbidity in populations  and proactively minimize  the need and the demand for medical services.  This could be accomplished by integrating medical care and public health services and shifting to a population-based health system approach.  The US health care system is currently at the center of an important reform debate whose outcome will likely influence its future course. Purpose: This presentation will: 1) Review the rationale for an integrated health system; 2) Discuss principles found to be essential to their effectiveness; 3) Describe tools that can help a health system address health disparities; 4) Examine steps towards integration in the current US health system reform law.