Michael Porter on "Value Based Health Care Delivery"

According to Harvard professor Michael Porter, health care reform is proving to be one of the defining issues of the 21st century, both in the United States and throughout the world. Costs are exploding even in single-payer systems driven by aging populations and rising expectations for better care. There is heated debate about what to do, but the focus is on the wrong question: how to cut costs? Porter contends that the only real solution is to transform the delivery of health care to dramatically improve value, or the health outcomes per dollar spent. Health care systems in every country have a value problem, and fixing it will require restructuring of care delivery itself, not incremental solutions. This session offered a roadmap for transforming health care delivery, drawing on examples of leading health care providers and health plans that are achieving exciting value improvements in the US and other countries.