Reducing health care costs through prevention

The health of Americans has social, cultural, and financial implications. Health care expenditures are projected to more than double over the next decade; Americans are becoming increasingly reliant on acute care and pharmaceuticals; and iatrogenics are an increasing reality as the medical system continues to crumble under excessive demand. Political leaders are beginning to realize that reforming the health care system requires a prevention component to reduce the burden on the medical system, but have failed for the most part, to incorporate prevention in any meaningful way.

In Fall 2007, Prevention Institute and The California Endowment developed a policy brief on the potential of primary prevention to substantially reduce health care expenditures and presented findings at the California state legislature. This presentation will highlight the most prominent findings from that investigation (including a new model for capturing prevention savings and analysis of end-of-life costs) and explore ways to increase the capacity of government to prevent illness and injury in the first place through public policy and institutional-practice change.

The presentation will articulate a framework for impacting health outcomes that expands the traditional medical model. The framework includes policy recommendations targeting investment in prevention and government agencies and private institutions that make decisions daily that impact health, to begin a process of reform that expands accountability for health. Prevention is bipartisan, salient to the business community which is increasingly worried about lost productivity due to illness and injury, and has the benefit of also impacting the root causes of health disparities.