US Value-Based Healthcare Policy and Its Role of Pharmacists: Contribution of Pharmacist in Accountable Care Organization (ACO) / 社会薬学

ABSTRACT

In the United States, the concepts of “Pay For Performance” and “Value-Based Health Care” were introduced, and it has been taken up as the way forward for the American health care systems. As one of the measures, an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) was included in the federal Affordable Care Act, and are being promoted for the purpose of balancing cost savings and good quality assurance in the healthcare field. In this manuscript, we provide an overview of the system of ACO, which is one of the value-based health care systems and was introduced with the aim of balancing cost savings and good quality assurance of medical care, and also focus on the role of pharmacists in ACO and summarize their roles they are executing and expected. Furthermore, we discuss on what we should learn from the United States in considering the ideal medical care systems in Japan.