Institute For The Future

Igniting Change in the Post-ACA Decade

Almost 7 years after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed and 5 years since it was upheld in the Supreme Court, leadership, foresight, and creativity in health care is needed more than ever. And while the Health Futures Lab always planned to publicly release the 2015 research on the post-ACA decade this month, the imminent changes facing the Affordable Care Act make releasing this research now particularly germane.  This is because a key finding in Igniting Change: Innovative Care Models in the Post-ACA Decade is that the ACA catalyzed a new innovation landscape in health care because it unified and amplified other forces that had been reshaping health and health care for years.

So, irrespective of any alterations that will be made to the federal statute over the next few years, these catalyzing forces—integrative care, people-powered health, anticipatory interventions, radical transparency, and linked knowledge—will continue to chip away at legacy delivery systems and outdated care and research models. They will continue to create the conditions that will catalyze experimentation, creativity, and radical reinvention of care models in the next decade.

The post-ACA decade offers an unprecedented opportunity for leaders in health care to affect change. It presents a landscape in which we can rethink assumptions, relinquish legacy practices, and combine promising experiments to remake health care at the systems level.

This foresight map is your guide to leading in this new landscape. It maps new care models that restructure how talent, resources, and expertise are organized. By exploring the innovative care models that exist today and the catalyzing forces that enable them, you can better anticipate change in the next decade. And by employing the six leadership strategies, you can support and scale innovative approaches to health and well-being.