The latest innovation in health care financing goes by the buzz words “consumer driven health care.” The essential features of CDHC are high-deductible health insurance plans, usually with a health savings account (HSA) for the insured person to use to pay the high deductibles and co-payments. The notion behind these plans is for [...]

The movement to improve health care quality has been underway for decades. There has been progress on several fronts, especially recently – including greater awareness of the problem, agreement on how to measure and report quality, and even growing consensus about the best ways to deliver the highest quality care in a clinical setting. At [...]

Electronic medical records hold great promise for improving quality of care. Development of a national electronic health records system, however, is progressing slowly. Today, less than ten percent of physician practices use an electronic medical record. It surprises me that some health care professionals still question the benefit of moving from paper to [...]