Authors
Aaron McKethan
Dr. Aaron McKethan served as the National Program Director for the Beacon Community Program in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Previously, he served as Research Director at the Brookings Institution's Engleberg Center for Health Care Reform, where he managed research and implementation projects focused on health IT, provider payment, quality improvement and delivery system reform at the State and regional level. He also led several projects related to Medicare and Medicaid payment policy, quality improvement demonstrations, and national health reform. Dr. McKethan was previously a management consultant, where he focused primarily on State health reform, Medicaid financing issues, and delivery system reform initiatives. He is currently a health policy lecturer at the Department of Health Policy at the George Washington University Medical Center. Dr. McKethan was previously a management consultant, where he focused primarily on State health reform, Medicaid financing issues, and delivery system reform initiatives. He is currently a health policy lecturer at the Department of Health Policy at the George Washington University Medical Center. He received his Ph.D. in Public Policy Analysis from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Aaron McKethan's Latest Blog Posts
Aaron McKethan | November 29, 2011
Time flies when you’re having fun. As my tenure as the Director of the Beacon Community program draws to a close, I have reflected on some of the early lessons that the Beacon Community innovators and implementers around the nation have taught me in the last couple of years.
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Aaron McKethan | May 13, 2011
A year has passed since 17 diverse communities nationwide were notified by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) that they would receive Beacon Community awards. These critical resources empowered the Beacon Community Awardees (“the Beacons”) to build and strengthen their local health IT capacity, use health IT in innovative ways to improve the efficiency and quality of care they can provide their patients, and identify and disseminate these innovations and lessons-learned to others.
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Aaron McKethan | April 4, 2011
Interview with Christie North, Vice President, HealthInsight
1. What does the IC3 Utah Beacon Community hope to accomplish?
Our ultimate hope is to improve the health of our community so that patients with diabetes do not progress to the next stage of illness prematurely and so that they may experience a greater quality of life. If we are successful,10 years from now, no patient will be admitted to a hospital or go to the emergency department in diabetic trouble that could have been prevented.
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Aaron McKethan | February 10, 2011
We recently described some innovations underway at Parkland Health and Hospital System (PHHS) in Dallas, Texas. Today, we pick up on that theme and describe what another community in Texas is doing to improve care and overall health for their community.
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Aaron McKethan | February 4, 2011
The most rewarding aspect of our job working with Beacon Communities is the opportunity to meet with leaders on the front lines of health care to discover how they are using health IT to design concrete improvements in care delivery. Of course, much innovation is underway and progress is being made throughout the country beyond ONC’s network of programs. Our Beacon Communities and other ONC awardees can learn from these efforts,
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