A cost-containment agenda for academic health centers

Many people, particularly the business leaders and legislators who must find ways to pay most of the nation's health care bill, consider current and projected rates of health expenditure growth a serious problem. Effective solutions to this intractable problem have thus far eluded policymakers. The problem has complex and intertwined roots; its amelioration will require action by many players in the health sector. Academic health centers (AHCs), as the breeding ground for so much of the technological and organizational base of medical care and as the training ground for so many of the professionals in the health sector, bear some of the responsibility for the rate of health expenditure growth. Thus, they have a clear responsibility to help develop an effective response to this vexatious challenge. Three specific recommendations for steps the leaders of AHCs can take to assist in slowing the rate of growth in health care expenditures form the basis for this article.