Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary approach widely used in many industries, such as 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. In its report, Better Health Care and Lower Costs: Accelerating Improvement Through Systems Engineering, the Council proposes strategies 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 NQF President Chris Cassel, who co-chaired 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 so that patients and providers can make more informed decisions and drive improvements in care.”

PCAST is a national advisory group of leading scientists and engineers who directly advise the President and the Executive Office. PCAST’s role is to develop policy recommendations in the many areas where understanding of science, technology, and innovation is key to strengthening the nation’s economy and forming policy that works for the American people.