Leading CEOs Take Actions to Address Nation’s Health Challenges

As the United States looks for solutions to improve the quality, cost and patient experience of care, a group of nine chief executives of some of the nation’s largest companies and the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) have come together to share best practices and make commitments to improve health and health care.

Today, the CEO Council on Health and Innovation (CEO Council) released a report, Building Better Health: Innovative Strategies from America’s Business Leaders, that shares their strategies for and invites other employers to join their commitment to: (1) both implement and track the outcomes of their health and wellness programs; (2) collaborate on the implementation of community-based programs; and (3) improve the health care system by supporting the movement toward transparency and payment and delivery models that are based on outcomes rather than volume.

Members of the CEO Council, who together employ more than 1 million people and provide health care coverage for 150 million individuals in the United States, include:

• Dominic Barton, Managing Director, McKinsey & Company
• Mark T. Bertolini, Chairman, CEO, and President, Aetna
• Alex Gorsky, Chairman and CEO, Johnson & Johnson (new member)
• Muhtar Kent (Co-chair), Chairman and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company
• Lowell C. McAdam (Co-chair), Chairman and CEO, Verizon Communications
• Brian T. Moynihan, CEO, Bank of America Corporation
• Scott P. Serota, President and CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
• Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD (Co-chair), Chairman and CEO, Institute for Advanced Health and NantHealth
• Gregory D. Wasson, President and CEO, Walgreen Co.

“America’s business community has always been an effective driver of change and progress,” said the members of the CEO Council in the report. “We are strongly committed to taking action to improve the health and wellness of the nation as a whole, and to promote higher quality, cost-effective, patient-centered care.”

American companies and their employees bear about 45 percent of the nation’s total health expenditures, which are approaching $2.8 trillion or nearly a fifth of all U.S. spending. The CEO Council believes that the health of the nation is vital to maintaining American competitiveness in the global marketplace today and for the next generation.

The report contains individual company strategies, along with successful tactics, benefits, lessons learned and key results derived from the experiences of council members and research conducted by BPC. It also calls upon other employers to share their commitments to taking action in the following areas:

1. To improve the health and wellness of individuals: Implement comprehensive health and wellness programs that address nutrition and physical activity, tobacco use, emotional and behavioral health and condition management and begin tracking and sharing outcomes to promote learning and improvement.
2. To improve the health of communities: Understand local progress and collaborate with public and private sector leaders to focus on physical activity, nutrition, and tobacco use; improvements in clinical care and health outcomes, with a focus on access to care, preventive services, and prevalence of chronic disease; and social and economic factors that have been shown to improve the health of communities.
3. To improve the health care system: Increase the share of provider payments that are based on value rather than volume; promote delivery system innovations that have been shown to deliver value; promote reporting of meaningful performance data; recognize the importance of primary care; and support employee and beneficiary health care decision-making by increasing the transparency of performance information, providing consumer education tools and implementing value-based benefit design.

Several members of the CEO Council also plan to launch pilots that will gauge the scalability of innovative strategies shown to be successful in their individual companies. The CEO Council will also release a progress report on employer actions taken and outcomes next year. An interactive website launched in conjunction with the release of the report contains a wealth of resources to support implementation among employers.

Throughout the project, the CEO Council was advised by a Health Care Advisory Board, made up of chief executives of organizations representing clinicians, consumers and hospitals. In addition, Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Bill Frist (R-TN) are providing guidance to this collaborative effort. Janet Marchibroda, BPC’s Director of Health Innovation, serves as the CEO Council’s Executive Director.

To read the full report of BPC’s CEO Council on Health and Innovation, click here.

To download report graphics, charts and videos, click here.

To view and share an online version of this press release, click here.

About the Bipartisan Policy Center

Founded in 2007 by former U.S. Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole, and George Mitchell, Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) is a non-profit organization that drives principled solutions through rigorous analysis, reasoned negotiation and respectful dialogue. With projects in multiple issue areas, BPC combines politically balanced policymaking with strong, proactive advocacy and outreach. http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/

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