Chip Kahn Highlights the Importance of Coordinated Care

Chip Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, discusses the future of the Affordable Care Act, and the importance of coordinated care.

Transcript (modified)

What are some of your concerns about healthcare coverage in 2017?

Well, this is a key election in terms of the future healthcare coverage. There are quite different positions taken by the Democratic side and the Republican side and, depending on who controls the White House in 2017, I think it will dictate the fate of the ACA and the coverage provisions in it.

What is the importance of coordinated care through the care continuum?

Well, I think every bit of evidence about healthcare leads to one conclusion: that if we have a system in which, particularly for the chronically ill — and we’ll have more and more chronically ill as the population ages – if we have all the parts of the system that a person deals with, all of the different doctors, all of the different facilities, all of the different types of settings they receive care in, if everybody’s on the same page and rolling in the same direction, it’s going to be good for the patient. The patient is going to be better off: there’s going to be less mistakes made in terms of drugs, there’s going to be less negative interactions, the patient is going to be better informed. We need everyone who is in the care setting to be rolling in the same direction.