The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has issued six principles to help guide reform of the nation's healthcare system.
Noting that the United States healthcare system faces a crisis of access, cost, and quality, the AAMC document calls for U.S. medical schools and major teaching hospitals to play "a pivotal role in improving health and health care and in achieving positive changes in the healthcare system," given their significant roles as health care providers, educators of future physicians, and discoverers of new scientific knowledge. Such reform must improve both healthcare delivery and financing, while preserving the greatest strengths of the current system. The goal of the new AAMC principles is to guide this process.
The AAMC's six principles of healthcare reform affirm that:
• Affordable, transportable, and continuous healthcare coverage that combines the best of public and private systems should be available to all.
• The U.S. system must be restructured to promote wellness and disease prevention, while providing high-quality, cost-effective diagnosis and treatment of illness, as well as palliative care.
• Healthcare financing mechanisms should be sustainable, equitable, explicit, accountable, and promote efficiency and quality.
• Existing programs that serve defined populations should be maintained until superior alternatives can fully replace them.
• The supply of healthcare practitioners must be adequate and reflect the population and its healthcare needs.
• Any reconfiguration of the healthcare system should acknowledge and support the costs inherent in health research, technology development, and the provision of necessary specialized services.
