Summing Up

Abstract

The first volume in this series, which was both overview and preview of volumes to come, concluded that “private industry—both management and labor—plays a multidimensional and complex role in health care, with rising costs a precipitating factor and with concern for quality, equity, and access also very much in mind.”¹ That role was divided into three parts:

As a payer for health care on a large and growing scale through employee benefit packages, industry has vital interests that are tightly bound up with the nation’s need to slow the rise of health care costs. As a provider of care through diverse in-house programs and clinics, industry faces dilemmas of accountability, confidentiality, and evaluation, along with expanded responsibilities for the health and welfare of workers. As a consumer of health care whose potential influence in the system derives in part from the massive numbers of workers who use health care services, industry has an opportunity and perhaps an obligation to share its expertise as well as to learn by participating in community efforts to find equitable ways to allocate limited resources and improve the quality of the health care system.²