Every year, you may hear more and more about Accountable Care Organizations. Generally referred to as ACOs, these are groups of doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers that come together voluntarily to give coordinated high-quality healthcare to their Medicare patients. The goal of coordinated care is to ensure that patients, especially the chronically ill, get the right care at the right time while avoiding unnecessary duplication of services and preventing medical errors (Centers for Medicare, 2019). As a healthcare administrator, you must ensure that you understand the various types of healthcare organizations available for your facility, your employees, and your patients. ***For this assignment, you examine Accountable Care Organizations and the programs that are supported by them, as well as the best practices used by these programs in the effort to guarantee high-quality care to their Medicare patients. ****References: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (2019). Accountable care organizations (ACO). Retrieved from https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-Fee-for-Service-Payment/ACO/index.html?redirect=/ACO Peer-reviewed Articles: Devereaux, S., Debra; Z, David (2018). Population health management: A community imperative. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 75(2), p.46-48 https://proxygw.wrlc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rzh&AN=127211499&site=ehost-live&scope=site&authtype=ip,uid&custid=s8987071 Ritchie, C.; Leff, B (2018). Population Health and Tailored Medical Care in the Home: the Roles of Home-Based Primary Care and Home-Based Palliative Care. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 55(3), pp.1041-1046. https://proxygw.wrlc.org/login?url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885392417305420 Gottlieb, L; Glymour, M; Kersten, E; Taing, E; Hagan, E; Vlahov, D; Adler, (2016). Challenges to an integrated population health research agenda: Targets, scale, tradeoffs, and timing. Social Science & Medicine, 150, pp.279-285. https://proxygw.wrlc.org/login?url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615302124
