Resource planning and control in health care

Properly designed and administered, this three-part program has the potential both to plan effectively for the use of resources and to control the underlying forces that drive health care expenditures. Through the media of spreadsheet and data base technology, the program has the capacity to analyze and present the data necessary to more effectively plan and control the delivery of health care services in an attempt to assure universal access to quality care at a reasonable cost. And through its reliance on a series of meaningful professional sanctions, including financial rewards and penalties, the program has the potential to create more orderly and cost-effective behaviour in the delivery of health care--an assurance that reality will more closely approximate planning objectives than it has in the past.