Best Care at Lower Cost
Health care in America has experienced an explosion in knowledge, innovation, and capacity to manage previously fatal conditions. Yet, paradoxically, it falls short on such fundamentals as quality, outcomes, cost, and equity. Each action that could improve quality—developing knowledge, translating new information into medical evidence, applying the new evidence to patient care—is marred by significant shortcomings and inefficiencies that result in missed opportunities, waste, and harm to patients.The full extent of these shortcomings is visible when considering how other industries routinely operate compared with many aspects of health care.
Builders rely on blueprints to coordinate the work of carpenters, electricians, and plumbers. Banks offer customers financial records that are updated in real time. Automobile manufacturers produce thousands of vehicles that are standardized at their core, while tailored at the margins. While health care must accommodate many competing priorities and human factors unlike those in other industries, the health care system could learn from these industries how to better meet specific needs, expand choices, and shave costs. Americans would be better served by a more nimble health care system that is consistently reliable and that constantly, systematically, and seamlessly improves. In short, the country needs health care that learns by avoiding past mistakes and
adopting newfound successes.
http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2012/Best-Care/BestCareReportBrief.pdf
