Title: The need for Economies of Alignment in the US Healthcare system
Author; Philip Boxer
Category: Working Paper
The trigger for this note is an article in the NY Times referring to the work of Peter Orszag on HealthCare Policy, the background to which are the significant shortcomings in overuse, underuse and misuse of healthcare services. The core challenge is to engineer healthcare systems that can focus explicitly on indirect as well as direct benefits for patients. It is challenging to support and sustain the collaborations needed to do this with respect to the varieties of through-life conditions presented by patients, because it calls for a different approach to defining value within the larger healthcare ecosystem.