For doctors and hospitals looking to accelerate the implementation of advanced clinical technologies, facilitate the adoption of evidence-based medicine, and generally reduce the underuse, overuse, and misuse of clinical resources, clinical integration has become a powerful business and clinical strategy.

Clinical integration provides hospitals and physicians with the ability to thrive in the advent of consumerism, pay-for-performance, and quality report cards. It positions health care providers to compete in their local market on the basis of providing high quality health care, and not on the basis of unit cost alone. It also provides networks of independent physicians and hospitals the ability to enter into innovative, collective arrangements with PPO health plans.

At the same time, however, it's very clear that the establishment of a clinical integration program is not a project undertaken lightly by networks of physicians and hospitals. What's needed, ultimately, is a comprehensive program of inpatient and ambulatory quality improvement initiatives that provide measurable results, which are then used to evaluate physician performance, and which, in turn, result in concrete interventions toward remediation and improvement of that performance.

And this requires strong leadership. The Institute for Clinical Quality & Value fosters that leadership by providing a venue for health care leaders to share ideas, experiences, and best practices in the creation of structures, programs, and initiatives that improve clinical quality and efficiency.