Academics research on Accountable care organizations

• Creating accountable care organizations: the extended hospital medical staff, Fisher, E. S., Staiger, D. O., Bynum, J. P., & Gottlieb, D. J. (2007). Creating accountable care organizations: the extended hospital medical staff. Health Affairs, 26(1), w44-w57. Many current policies and approaches to performance measurement and payment reform focus on individual providers; they risk reinforcing the fragmented care and lack of coordination experienced by patients with serious illness. In this paper we show that Medicare beneficiaries receive most of their care from relatively coherent local delivery systems comprising physicians and the hospitals where they work or admit their patients. Efforts to create accountable care organizations at this levelthe extended hospital medical staffdeserve consideration as a potential means of improving the quality and lowering the cost of care. 
• Accountable care organizations: accountable for what, to whom, and how, Fisher, E. S., & Shortell, S. M. (2010). Accountable care organizations: accountable for what, to whom, and how. Jama, 304(15), 1715-1716. Interest in accountable care organizations (ACOs) has increased dramatically with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which establishes ACOs as a new payment model under Medicare and fosters pilot programs to extend the model to private payers and Medicaid. Proponents hope that ACOs will allow physicians, hospitals, and other clinicians and health care organizations to work more effectively together to both improve quality and slow spending growth.1 Skeptics are concerned that ACOs will focus narrowly on their bottom line and either stint on needed care or use the leverage they achieve through local integration to demand unreasonable prices from payers. 
• Launching accountable care organizationsthe proposed rule for the Medicare Shared Savings Program, Berwick, D. M. (2011). Launching accountable care organizationsthe proposed rule for the Medicare Shared Savings Program. New England Journal of Medicine, 364(16), e32.
• Achieving population health in accountable care organizations, Hacker, K., & Walker, D. K. (2013). Achieving population health in accountable care organizations. American journal of public health, 103(7), 1163-1167. Although population health is one of the Institute for Healthcare Improvements Triple Aim goals, its relationship to accountable care organizations (ACOs) remains ill-defined and lacks clarity as to how the clinical delivery system intersects with the public health system. Although defining population health as panel management seems to be the default definition, we called for a broader community health definition that could improve relationships between clinical delivery and public health systems and health outcomes for communities. We discussed this broader definition and offered recommendations for linking ACOs with the public health system toward improving health for patients and their communities.
• Driving population health through accountable care organizations, DeVore, S., & Champion, R. W. (2011). Accountable care organizations, scheduled to become part of the Medicare program under the Affordable Care Act, have been promoted as a way to improve health care quality, reduce growth in costs, and increase patients satisfaction. It is unclear how these organizations will develop. Yet in principle they will have to meet quality metrics, adopt improved care processes, assume risk, and provide incentives for population health and wellness. These capabilities represent a radical departure from today's health delivery system. In May 2010 the Premier healthcare alliance formed the Accountable Care Implementation Collaborative, which consists of health systems that seek to pursue accountability by forming partnerships with private payers to evolve from fee-for-service payment models to new, value-driven models. This article describes how participants in the collaborative are building models and developing best practices that can inform the implementation of accountable care organizations as well as public policies.