H&HN Daily: Over the next decade, health care delivery and financing will shift from volume- to value-based payments. Hospital leaders, seeking ways to address economic incentives, may find that developing advanced illness management programs will help the transition. Advanced illness, according to the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care, is one or more conditions serious enough that general health and functioning are declining and treatments begin to lose their impact — a process that continues to the end of life.

Several organizations have launched end-of-life care initiatives that promote patient and community awareness and engagement. The Conversation Project, in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, is developing capacity among health care professionals to initiate, elicit, receive and build on conversations with patients facing life-limiting illness, and to create awareness and engagement among individuals. The Coalition to Transform Advanced Care works with diverse organizations and individuals dedicated to transforming advanced illness care and improving the social, policy and health care system environment and norms for quality care.