The Journal of Healthcare Contracting
August 9, 2012
by Mark Thill
Now that many – though not all – of the legal questions surrounding healthcare reform are behind us, at least for the time being, the real work continues – improving patient care while reducing costs. It’s that most difficult task of marrying clinical and supply chain realities, and it’s written all over this month’s issue of the Journal of Healthcare Contracting.
…But a few things have changed today. First, the quality of data, in terms of its ability to demonstrative clinical effectiveness of products and procedures, has improved. Second, concern about the ever-increasing cost of delivering healthcare permeates our culture. Case in point: The American College of Physicians and the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine have developed a free curriculum to help train internal medicine residents about how to avoid overuse and misuse of tests and treatments that do not improve outcomes and may cause harm. Do you think we would have seen something like that 10 years ago…