Accountable Communities for Health: Moving From Providing Accountable Care to Creating Health

The Article in Brief

Accountable Communities for Health: Moving From Providing Accountable Care to Creating Health

Renuka Tipirneni , and colleagues

Background One of the aims of accountable care organizations (ACOs) is to improve the health of the population. Past efforts to build community-oriented primary care in the United States can offer insights into this process.

What This Study Found Lessons from community-oriented primary care could move ACOs, which are narrowly health care-focused, toward "accountable communities for health" (ACHs), integrating medical care, public health, and social services. Compared to ACOs, this approach could be more inclusive of the diverse determinants of health, with greater potential to improve population health. There are early examples of ACH models in Minneapolis, MN and Akron, Ohio.

Implications

• The authors suggest that by using the ACH model, ACOs have a roadmap for embedding health care in communities in a way that uniquely addresses local social determinants of health.