Health care's quality improvement imperative.
In health care, as quality improves, costs tend to decline. The goals of excellent care and affordable costs are not mutually exclusive. Borrowing quality improvement techniques from manufacturing industries, physicians and other health care professionals are achieving breakthroughs in improving the quality and reducing the cost of care. Quality improvement continues the tradition of scientific inquiry in medicine and places new emphasis on accountability to the customers of health care: patients and payers. By examining processes, clinicians look at the delivery of care across different treatment modalities and rely on the insights of employees involved at every stage of the processes. Intermountain Health Care is one American health care organization that has experienced significant success in improving quality and reducing cost through the use of quality improvement methods.