ACADEMIC HEALTH CENTERS: LEADING CHANGE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

ACADEMIC HEALTH CENTERS: LEADING CHANGE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Health care is changing in very fundamental and important ways. Biomedical and other technological advances create a constantly expanding knowledge base to be harnessed and applied so its benefits can reach people. Our con-cepts of medicine, health, and preventive care will be fundamentally redefined as knowledge from human genome research and other new sciences offer new treatments and the ability to customize care to meet individual needs and characteristics. Peoples’ health needs are shifting from the treatment of acute illness to the management of chronic conditions, which are the leading cause of illness, disability, and death, and account for the majority of health resources used today. Expanding technology and knowledge provides opportunities for the health care system to achieve goals of much higher levels of quality and safety.Academic health centers (AHCs) play a particularly important role in responding to these forces because they are the places that train health professionals, conduct re-search that advances health, and provide care especially to the most ill and poorest populations. The IOM Committee on the Roles of Academic Health Centers came to-gether in 2001 to consider how AHC roles in education, research and patient care will need to adapt if they are to continue to meet the public’s needs in the coming decades. For this study, an AHC is the constellation of functions and organizations that are committed to improving the health of patients and populations through the integration of their roles in research, education, and patient care to produce the knowledge and evidence base that becomes the foundation for both treating illness and improving health.