Getting serious about producing health: The ten teams challenge

For the most part, health care does not create health. Instead, it repairs, forestalls, or mitigates the effects of damage done elsewhere. That is essential and noble work, but it is largely reactive.

The true causes of health and illness, and of inequities and variation in health, are powerful and thoroughly documented. Yet the status quo illogically places nearly all US investment in health (now approaching 20% of US gross domestic product) in the repair shop. In effect, it fixes dented fenders, but not roads. The financial costs of this imbalanced investment are massive, and the toll on human vitality is even more concerning.