ABSTRACT

Affordable Healthcare continues to be an elusive goal as the expense of care continues to escalate and the investment itself yields a lower return. The third leading cause of death, following heart disease and cancer, are medical errors that increase cost, create waste, escalate risk and liability, and consume valuable resources that could be applied to quality care and patient care accessibility. Affordable Healthcare cannot be isolated nor consolidated to the multitude of singular and solitary subjects such as coverage, condition, outcomes, mandates, accessibility, and cost. Healthcare Affordability, can be achieved through the constant, relentless, and continuous pursuit for faster, better, more affordable, patient-centered care. It is a systems approach, focusing on attacking the root cause of the many problems, and providing solutions for increasing care delivery speed, responsiveness, quality, capacity, accessibility, and affordability. The boundaries of the domain of care, encompassing the entire Healthcare Enterprise that includes: Healthcare Providers, Medicine and Pharmaceutical Providers, and Insurance and Payment Providers.