Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Something to Watch
The June 2004 issue of the Harvard Business Review includes an essay titled Redefining Competition in Health Care. The authors are Michael E. Porter of the Harvard Business School, one of 16 “University Professors” in Harvard University, and Elizabeth Olmsted Telsberg, an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia.
The essence of their idea is that competition in the health care market should be around particular diseases and treatments rather than at the level of health plans, networks, or hospital groups. It is expected that before long, the concept will be fleshed out and published in book form.
The article strikes me as being important for three reasons.
First, it offers hope that the needed redesign of our health care system may attract the interest of the intellectual community, which, up to now, it unfortunately has not.
Second, it deals with the design of the health care market itself, a topic that must be addressed if competition is to have the desired results.
Third, it urges that large employers take responsibility for redesigning the market, using their purchasing power to effect the necessary changes. This is probably the only way redesign will happen and Professor Porter is reputed to have the ear of the business community.
Although I think the Porter/Telsberg concept has serious flaws (it does not, for example, address the issue of utilization; i.e., assuring that patients get the services they need and no more), it perhaps will open a needed debate among the people that matter and is, therefore, something to watch.
The June 2004 issue of the Harvard Business Review includes an essay titled Redefining Competition in Health Care. The authors are Michael E. Porter of the Harvard Business School, one of 16 “University Professors” in Harvard University, and Elizabeth Olmsted Telsberg, an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia.
The essence of their idea is that competition in the health care market should be around particular diseases and treatments rather than at the level of health plans, networks, or hospital groups. It is expected that before long, the concept will be fleshed out and published in book form.
The article strikes me as being important for three reasons.
First, it offers hope that the needed redesign of our health care system may attract the interest of the intellectual community, which, up to now, it unfortunately has not.
Second, it deals with the design of the health care market itself, a topic that must be addressed if competition is to have the desired results.
Third, it urges that large employers take responsibility for redesigning the market, using their purchasing power to effect the necessary changes. This is probably the only way redesign will happen and Professor Porter is reputed to have the ear of the business community.
Although I think the Porter/Telsberg concept has serious flaws (it does not, for example, address the issue of utilization; i.e., assuring that patients get the services they need and no more), it perhaps will open a needed debate among the people that matter and is, therefore, something to watch.
