IMAGINE what would happen if we learned that a major business was wasting a third of its revenue by grossly overspending while rewarding poor quality and mistakes. Everyone from the company’s board members to its shareholders would be outraged. They would demand answers. And they would demand change.
There is, in fact, such a business: healthcare. It is an industry in which everyone has a stake – as a patient, a payer, or a provider. And yet the stakeholders have been alarmingly quiet on the issue of waste and inefficiency.