coordinated care was a major problem, Fisher proposed a new payment and delivery model to encourage groups of physicians, with or without hospitals, to focus on improving quality and avoiding unnecessary expenditures. Fisher and Glen Hackbarth, chair of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, came up with the term "accountable care organization" (ACO) to describe the model. Fisher then worked with a small group of researchers and policy advocates, including Mark McClellan, to refine the design of the model and estimate the potential impact on spending. The goal of ACOs is to give systems financial incentives to be efficient and to keep patients out of the hospital. On January 18, 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services introduced guidelines for the ACO's inclusion in the new health care law. ReThink Health In the mid-2000s, the Fannie E. Rippel Foundation convened a small group of thought leaders, including Donald Berwick, Elliott Fisher, Amory Lovins, Peter Senge and Elinor Ostrom, to consider the major barriers to reforming health care and improving health in the United States. The group evolved into what is now a national program of the Rippel Foundation that has developed a computer simulation of local health care economies and partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to catalyze local health system change. Research Fisher's ongoing research is focused on evaluating how current delivery and payment system reforms contribute to improving the quality and cost of health care. He is the principal investigator of the Dartmouth-Berkeley Center of Excellence in Health Systems Performance. He and investigators from the Dartmouth Institute and the University of California, Berkeley, are examining the market and organizational factors that are associated with better health care—and with the successful formation of ACOs and other innovative models of care delivery. Recognition In 2009, Fisher appeared on 60 Minutes in a segment titled "The Cost of Dying". He told host Steve Kroft, "I think 30 percent of hospital stays in the United States are probably unnecessary given what our research looks like." He has published over 150 research articles and commentaries and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. In 2013 Fisher was named to Modern Healthcares list of 50 Most Influential Physician Executives in Healthcare. Misconduct investigation Fisher was the director of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy but was placed on paid administrative leave in August 2018 following a complaint about conduct in