The New Perspective of Quality

The U.S. health care sector consumes nearly 13 percent of our nation's gross national product, $800 billion annually. Our nation allocates the highest amount per capita to health care in the world. Yet many measures of health care outcomes from these expenditures are inferior to other developed nations. The American health care system costs too much, excludes too many, fails too often, contains much excessive and inappropriate care, and knows too little about the effectiveness of the things it does. The purpose of this article is to discuss current payers' perspectives on the potential for quality improvement in the U.S. health care system.