Republican Scott Brown’s improbable Senate victory in Massachusetts reshapes the U. S. political landscape. It also threatens to stop or, at the very least, delay the Obama administration’s nearly yearlong effort to pass a health reform bill, just inches short of the goal line.

While it is unclear exactly how Democratic leaders in the Congress will move forward with health reform legislation in light of Brown’s stunning victory, one thing remains crystal clear: The current course health care is on is unsustainable. Clearly, the U. S. health care system is broken and in need of repair.

Costs continue to rise, millions of Americans are not able to afford coverage and care is not being delivered in the most effective manner.

As we wait for Washington to recalculate the politics of achieving national health care reform and ultimately reach agreement on a bill for the president to sign, we must continue to move forward with new and creative efforts to improve care and lower costs, so everyone has access to quality, affordable care.

The current bill being considered by the House and Senate encourages communities to change the health care paradigm and address different models to achieve improved care at lower costs through prevention and wellness, enhanced health information technology and payment reform.

As I have stated on these pages in the past, health care reform cannot be done by the government or the health care industry alone. It is a collective responsibility where each one of us has a role to play.

It requires employers offering wellness programs that engage and reward employees who participate in healthy lifestyle changes and health risk management. It includes payers rewarding physicians and hospitals for quality outcomes, not volume of services provided. It involves active participation by community organizations in initiatives such as the P² Collaborative of Western New York, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the health of people in Western New York.

It depends on unprecedented collaboration among key stakeholders and the sharing of clinical information, and the adoption of heath information technology and electronic medical records through organizations such as HEALTHeLINK.

It also requires each one of us taking greater responsibility for our own health.

Sustainable reform means everybody is going to have to do something different, and we’re all going to have to suspend our beliefs about what may have worked in the past because we need different solutions brought forward.

We don’t need to wait for the White House and Congress to act. The sum of our collective efforts will go a long way to achieving the goals of meaningful health care reform in our community.