‘Better care, not just more care,’ is needed
“These outcomes cannot be improved with a more robust treatment armamentarium alone,” according to Jason K. Hou, MD, MS, AGAF, FACG, interim chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, who cowrote a simultaneously published editorial, which was also authored by David I. Fudman, MD.
Dr. Jason K. Hou
“Examples exist of improving care coordination and outcomes through patient-aligned care teams in primary care and medical specialty homes for IBD,” Dr. Hou said in an interview. “However, significant barriers to widespread implementation remain.”
Dr. Hou offered several possible approaches to overcome these barriers.
“We need improved methods to identify and follow high-risk patients most likely to have complications and health care utilization,” he said. “We need an investment by payers and health care systems on care coordination so the identified high-risk patients can receive timely testing, referral, and treatment. These changes require reevaluation of how the health care system incentivizes health care to provide better care, not just more care.”
The investigators reported grants from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Institutes of Health and financial relationships with AbbVie, UCB, and Takeda. Dr. Hou reported no conflicts of interest.