Listen now (29 mins) | Listen Now Recently the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) (formerly the Institute of Medicine) released it's "Effective Care for High-Need Patients, Opportunities for Improving Outcomes, Value and Health." The report attempts to address a long-standing problem in health care delivery, e.g., five percent of patients ("high-need" patients) account for, or consume, 50 percent of health care resources. That is if these patients were identified in a more timely manner and better managed overall health care spending could be substantially reduced. Beyond the complexities involved in managing care for these highly co-morbid patients, the US does a comparatively poor job of coordinating or blending clinical care with non-clinical social service supports these patients need to mitigate their functional status limitations.