Beacons test community health care strategies

Federally funded "beacon" communities are tackling the problem of hospital readmissions and other tough health care challenges by testing the effectiveness of multiple treatment strategies simultaneously instead of taking the traditional approach of testing one treatment at a time, according to the program's director.

The model communities, which have already embraced electronic health records and information exchange, are working to determine which specific treatments best improve patient outcomes for their region's healthcare goals. They would then share for those results that they can share with other communities. "No one specific intervention in each community is designed to be the thing that will lead to improved health goals," said Aaron McKethan, director of ONC's Beacon program in the Office of the National Coordinator. "There are a lot of things happening in service to a specific aim in each of these communities," he said.