Why are employers prodding health-care providers to adopt new management systems?: reducing the cost of health care.

Increasingly concerned about the escalating costs of health-care insurance coverage, the quality of health-care delivery, and the escalating costs of delivering clinical services, employers are taking action. They are prodding health-care providers and insurers to adopt breakthrough management systems aimed at reducing costs related to poorly performing services and processes--and at the same time improving clinical outcomes. Doing this will require all members of the health-care value chain to work together to improve each and every process and procedure, whether clinical or administrative. This development presents formidable challenges to all health-care providers, insurers, employees, and patients.