Three books, three perspectives on "solving" our healthcare problem

With the inauguration of a new U.S. president, the focus has returned to the challenge of implementing an equitable, affordable and high quality healthcare system. In that perspective, three relatively recent books speak to the challenge. Two of them written by our own colleagues. These are:

• "Who Killed HealthCare? : America's $2 Trillion Medical Problem - and the Consumer-Driven Cure" (Regina Herzlinger)
• "The Innovator's Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care" (Clayton M. Christensen, Jerome H. Grossman M.D., Jason Hwang M.D.)
• "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis" (Tom Daschle)

I remember talking to Jerry Grossman, a year ago, about the future of healthcare and how optimistic he was that technology could serve to aggressively re-align our care delivery system. I hope history will vindicate him but I worry that we will have to first face much more honestly and transparently the conflicting drivers of maximization of societal health outcomes vs. maximization of personal health outcomes. These three books provide models of how to meet this inevitable tension and it is likely the President's advisors are fully aware of all of them.