Partners Healthcare

This morning’s Boston Globe features a piece by columnist Steve Syre, which points out that some of Boston’s best-known providers, including Partners Healthcare, are working with the federal government on an initiative focused on delivering high-quality care at lower costs.

This initiative is known as the Pioneer ACO (Accountable Care Organization) program. Syre points out, “The commitment to the Pioneer program – the more aggressive of at least two cost-conscious pilot plans Medicare offered to health care providers – certainly feels like an important threshold to cross.”

This week’s announcement builds on a series of important developments in the marketplace to address the health care cost issue – including Partners own commitment to renegotiate existing contracts to slow the growth of health care costs and participate in alternative payment models like the Blue Cross Alternative Quality Contract.

Partners is not alone in these efforts. Other Pioneer ACO participants, such as Atrius Health, agree that, “In this shifting landscape, it is clear that Massachusetts will be a national leader.”

While there is a great deal of work to be done as we implement these changes, there is also a great deal of hope. There are many reasons to believe that the national health care conversation in 2012 will focus on precedents established here in Massachusetts, shining a light on the progress our health care community has made to deliver high quality care while lowering costs.