ACOEM POSITION STATEMENT Optimizing Health Care Delivery by Integrating Workplaces, Homes, and Communities How Occupational and Environmental Medicine Can Serve as a Vital Connecting Link Between Accountable Care Organizations and the Patient-Centered Med

In recent years, the health care re-form discussion in the United States has focused increasingly on the dual goals of cost-effective delivery and better patient out-comes. A number of new conceptual models for health care have been advanced to achieve these goals, including two that are well along in terms of practical development and implementation—the patient-centered medi-cal home (PCMH) and accountable care or-ganizations (ACOs). At the core of these two emerging concepts is a new emphasis on encouraging physicians, hospitals, and other health care stakeholders to work more closely together to better coordinate patient care through in-tegrated goals and data sharing and to create team-based approaches that give a greater role to patients in health care decision-making. This approach aims to achieve better health outcomes at lower cost. The PCMH model emphasizes the-central role of primary care and facilita-tion of partnerships between patient, physi-cian, family, and other caregivers, and integrates this care along a spectrum that includes hospitals, specialty care, and nurs-This article was prepared by the Committee of th