Health Care Rounds · 2026-05-29 · 57 min
Value-based care has been the defining promise of health care reform for two decades. Yet new evidence still takes an average of 17 years to reach standard clinical practice, payers and providers remain structurally misaligned, and most VBC models still prioritize payment mechanics over actual patient outcomes. Don Calcagno, Founder of ValuesEdge and former Chief Population Health Officer at Advocate Health, joins host John Marchica to talk about why value-based care is still in the early innings despite years of promise, and how closing the structural gap between payers and providers is the real unlock that the industry keeps avoiding. ================================================ ABOUT DON CALCAGNO Don has 30 years of experience across population health, managed care, operations, clinical integration, accountable care, laboratory sciences, process improvement, analytics and research. He started his career at Lutheran General Hospital in 1992, with a brief stint at AT&T. He serves on the boards of the Devoted Health joint venture and Medicare Shared Savings ACO. Don also leads the Leadership Institute’s Value-Based Care/Population Health forum.
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