Accountable care has arrived. Participation in accountable care organizations (ACOs) has more than doubled in the last 12 months, and most believe ACOs will survive even if the healthcare reform legislation that spawned the model doesn't.

Those are just two of the findings in 2012 Healthcare Benchmarks: Accountable Care Organizations, HIN's second annual compendium of metrics and benchmarks on ACOs.

This 60-page report, now in its second year, delivers actionable data from 200 healthcare companies that responded to HIN's second annual ACO readiness assessment conducted in May 2012.

Download the executive summary of "2012 Healthcare Benchmarks: Accountable Care Organizations"

Today's ACOs are leaner and more efficient, report this year's respondents. 2012 Healthcare Benchmarks: Accountable Care Organizations documents the numerous ways in which accountable care is transforming healthcare delivery, population health management, reimbursement for care and, most importantly to this year's survey respondents, the patient experience.

This report provides sector-specific qualitative data in the following areas:

• Current and planned ACOs;
• Participation in the CMS Shared Savings program (ACO for Medicare beneficiaries);
• Numbers of physicians participating in ACOs;
• Types of providers participating in ACOs;
• Principal ACO administrators;
• Populations covered by current ACOs;
• Numbers of lives covered by current ACOs;
• Time required for ACO creation;
• Use of electronic health records in ACOs;
• Reimbursement models in use in ACOs;
• Metrics to evaluate ACO success;
• Preferred quality, efficiency and satisfaction measure sets in use in ACOs;
• ROI from ACOs;
• Greatest challenges associated with an ACO launch;

New in the 2012 Edition:

• Comparative 2011-to-2012 data on key ACO metrics;
• Other healthcare professionals working in ACOs — prevalence of case manager, pharmacists, home health, etc.;
• The most effective tools, protocols and work flows in use in ACOs — in the respondents' own words.
• Impact of ACO model on population health, healthcare spend and other indicators;
• Early successes from ACOs; and
• The complete May 2012 Accountable Care Organizations survey tool.

These metrics are presented in more than 60 easy-to-follow graphs and tables.

Download the executive summary of "2012 Healthcare Benchmarks: Accountable Care Organizations."

The 60-page 2012 Healthcare Benchmarks: Accountable Care Organizations is part of the HIN Healthcare Benchmarking series, which provides continuous qualitative data on industry trends to empower healthcare companies to assess strengths, weaknesses and opportunities to improve by comparing organizational performance to reported metrics.