Health care in the 21st century: marketing's role in vertically integrated delivery systems.

Health care delivery has become one of the most significant economic and political issues of the 1990s. Historical efforts to reform the system to reduce costs while providing quality care to an ever-expanding population have not proven to be satisfactory. With attempts to restructure the industry for the 21st century come important implications for the marketing of health services. This article reviews the economics of the issues, historical efforts to control costs, and activities in the 1990s to restructure the industry. From this, implications for marketing's role in an evolving health care delivery system are described.