Chronic Care: Making the Case for Ongoing Care, a 2010 update of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's 2002 chartbook, examines the impact of chronic conditions on individuals and their caregivers, as well as the inadequacies of the U.S. health care system to meet their needs.

The data highlight the current problems encountered by people living with chronic health conditions. Most significantly, "care provided in the current acute, episodic model is not meeting the needs of people with chronic conditions and often leads to poor outcomes for patients with chronic conditions," writes Gerard Anderson, Ph.D., author of the chartbook and former director of RWJF's national program Partnership for Solutions: Better Lives for People With Chronic Conditions.

With 85 percent of the nation's health care dollars spent on people with chronic conditions, "the challenge is to use these resources efficiently to provide people with access to high-quality care and appropriate services that maintain health and functioning in the face of disease progression and ensure that this care is coordinated across multiple providers and payers," writes Anderson (abstract from: http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?id=50968).