PURPOSE This article describes a strategy for rural providers, communities, and policy makers to support or establish accountable care organizations (ACOs). METHODS ACOs represent a new health care delivery and provider payment system designed to improve clinical quality and control costs. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) makes contracts with ACOs a permanent option under ...

ust three or four years ago, accountable care organizations (ACOs) were being compared to the mythical unicorn – an intriguing idea, but one impossible to see in reality. Today, ACOs are very much a reality, with roughly 750 in operation – for Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial populations – serving 23.5 million people across the United States.1 ACOs are designed to achieve the Triple Aim of be...

Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are scheduled for implementation in 2012 by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and this “standard” ACO model seeks to encourage hospitals and ambulatory care practitioners to come together as organized entities responsible clinically and financially for the health care of 5000 Medicare beneficiaries.1,2 However, significant barriers to imp...

In the UK, policy changes in primary health care research and development have led to the establishment of primary care research networks. These organizations aim to increase research culture, capacity and evidence base in primary care. As publicly funded bodies, these networks need to be accountable. Organizational science has studied network organizations including why and how they develop an...