Health care costs in the U.S. represent approximately 17 percent of the GDP, or around $3 trillion annually.1 This far exceeds that of every other nation in the world both in sum and per capita.1 Despite this spending, life expectancy and other outcomes in the U.S. trail other developed countries.1 Coupling this discrepancy with the fact that the annual increases in U.S. health care spending continue to outpace inflation, it is not surprising that many are advocating increased emphasis on improving value in medicine. Michael Porter, from the Harvard Business School and keynote speaker at ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2016, has written that the overarching goal in medicine should be to achieve high value for patients.2 He defines value as being outcomes achieved per dollar spent.2 If we accept that, the formula for defining value is the following:
Then it follows that we need to reduce costs...