On May 5, the Brookings Institution released a report on accountable care organizations (ACOs) in light of their role in the national health care reform law.  The report examines different models for ACOs and focuses on implementation issues they face.  The report offers a proposed national strategy to identify and expand successful models of ACO implementation.

From the report: In this paper we first briefly summarize the underlying concepts, overarching principles, and prospects for widespread implementation of the ACOmodel, including how it evolved from recent Medicare demonstrations. Next we highlight the role of primary care in these reforms, and the interactions between the ACOmodel and other payment and delivery system reforms. We conclude by describing some of the key challenges and how a national implementation strategy including Medicare and other public and private payers might address them.

Full report: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/29/5/982?ijkey=F73VttJYqdogI&keytype=ref&siteid=healthaff

Brookings Institution.  2010.  A national strategy to put accountable care into practice.  McClellan, M., McKethan, A., Lewis, J., Roski, J. and Fisher, E.