Presidential Advisory Council Recommends Systems Engineering to Improve Health Care 

Chris Cassel and the PCAST Systems Engineering in Health Care Working Group with President Obama. Photo credit: White House Photo Office 

Washington, DC—In a new report released today, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), recommends implementing a "systems engineering" approach to achieve lower cost and higher quality in healthcare. Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary approach widely used in manufacturing and aviation, but only in a limited way in health care due to a number of barriers, including the fee-for-service payment system. The report, Better Health Care and Lower Costs: Accelerating Improvement Through Systems Engineering, proposes a strategy to overcome these barriers so that the full potential of systems engineering to improve health care can be achieved.

"The ability to look at high quality data, measurement and analytics in real time is key to systems engineering in any sector of the economy but particularly in health care," said Christine K. Cassel, MD, president and CEO of the National Quality Forum and co-chair of the PCAST Systems Engineering in Health Care Working Group, which authored the report. "To improve health care, good, relevant, standardized, and patient-centered measures and data must be more readily available in order for patients and providers to make more informed decisions and to drive improvements in care."

A White House blog and fact sheet on the PCAST report provides additional information.

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