Healthcare at a Turning Point: A Roadmap for Change

If the furious debate around the state of health care in the United States has led to any consensus, it’s that the system should be delivering better quality for less cost than it does. The truth is that our health care system is a sprawling mix of competing interests in which those of the patient are valued least. Too much discussion has devolved to simplistic scapegoating, and too few comprehensive, constructive solutions have been offered.

In Healthcare at a Turning Point, Rita Numerof and co-author Michael Abrams outline a new market-based business model that aligns industry financing mechanisms with the goals of prevention, improved quality, and reduced costs. Drawing on more than 25 years of cross-industry consulting experience, the authors articulate a market-based vision of the industry, examine the failures and unanticipated consequences of past efforts to reduce costs, and spotlight perverse incentives that distort the way the health care system operates. They also present concrete recommendations for change within the health care delivery, insurance, pharmaceutical, device and diagnostics sectors and explain the changes that employers, consumers and policymakers can make to create a more customer-responsive system that delivers more value.

Rita E. Numerof, Ph.D., President of Numerof & Associates, Inc., is an internationally recognized consultant and author in the field of strategy development and execution, business model design, and market analysis. An advisor to members of Congress on health care reform and comparative effectiveness research, Dr. Numerof also serves as an adjunct faculty member of the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.