From my perspective (a 30-year veteran physician executive), the syllogistic logic of these issues ought to be inescapable -- to help the patient, health care quality must be maintained if not improved (outcome measurement and monitoring is critical) and cost must be decreased at the same time through efficiency, discretion, and giving patients what they need (ie, better value for health care). 

Reducing Dx Errors in the Patient-centered Medical Home

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

The use of electronic medical records (EMRs) and the patient-centered, medical home (PCMH) concept can reduce diagnostic errors as they combine to improve coordination, communication, and the continuity of care.  However, it is neither the EHR, the PCMH, nor the combination; rather, it is the corporate culture, the ever-evolving system of care and the willingness to 'close the feedback loop.'

Yearly, approximately 100,000 patients die of health care–associated infections, about another 100,000 die from other preventable errors, and "tens of thousands more die of diagnostic errors or failure to receive recommended therapies."1-3