Taking the Next Step in Health Reform

Under health reform, millions of Americans will have access to the health care system for the first time. Now, we need to make sure that the care they receive is the best it can be—high quality and high value.

Equally important is the need to reverse the trend of unsustainable growth in health care costs, especially since Dartmouth research has documented that spending more does not result in better care. In fact, we have documented that more care and more expensive care often result in worse health outcomes.

"Right now, 30 percent of the $2.5 trillion spent each year on health care goes to unnecessary, inappropriate care and administrative functions that do little to improve the nation’s health."

How do we address the twin challenges of reducing costs and improving quality? By intensely focusing on and investing in a new field of study: health care delivery science.

Health care delivery science picks up where basic, clinical, and evaluative science leave off: it studies how we bring best practices of care to every patient, every time. We know the most effective ways of treating and managing diabetes—why doesn’t every diabetes patient receive the benefits of best care? Why is care uncoordinated across doctors and health care systems? Why is information in patients’ records incomplete and out of date? Because we have not applied the same scientific and systems rigor to how we deliver health care.

The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science aims to fix this by applying the full resources of the undergraduate and graduate schools at Dartmouth, and uniquely, its affiliated health system, Dartmouth-Hitchcock, to bring a multi-disciplinary approach to this multi-dimensional problem. With national and international collaborators, the Center will apply a laser focus to reform of the health care delivery system.

There will be five priority areas of work: Research, Education, Collaboration, Implementation, and Public Outreach.