Healthcare reform in 2009 was motivated by an imperative to reduce the relentless increase in spending on medical care. Many efforts to solve the problem focused on applying proven principles of evidence-based practice and cost-effectiveness to find the least-expensive way to produce a specific clinical service of acceptable quality. This paper combines economic analysis and reviews published l...

“Bit by bit, putting it together Piece by piece, only way to make a work of art Every moment makes a contribution Every little detail plays a part. Having just a vision’s no solution, Everything depends on execution Putting it together, that’s what counts!” —Stephen Sondheim Once, on hearing a colleague claim that the details of his new theory remained to be sketched in, Nobel laureate Wolfgang...

~| cmember the good old days? When R hospitals were viewed as a unique communi ty benefi t , placed on a pedestal by a grateful public? When educating business and government leaders about hospital operations and healthcare issues seemed unnecessary? Those days are but a memory'. Today, the public is chopping away at that pedestal, challenging healthcare providers as never before. Employers, at...

W ith the heal thcare reform debate intensifying, public discourse on the issue has begun to focus more on the mechanics of various proposals and less on the broad goals and principles that inform different plans. But as Rev. Kevin D. O'Rourke, O P , JCD, reminded the audience at a March conference sponsored by the Saint Louis University School of Medicine, those goals and principles must remai...

• he nation's healthcare crisis can be T U summed up in one sentence: O u r I healthcare system serves too few and • J K costs too much. Because of these two fundamental problems—lack of access and rising costs—healthcare reform has moved to the center of American political life. I am concerned that our politicians have been promising and our people have been expecting painless reform. American...