Do You See Improvements in Quality of Care?

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The most dramatic example is the frequency with which we get it right all the time. Right now about 50% of our measured indicators are in the top 10% nationally. When we look at the rate at which we administer thrombolytics for people who come to our emergency rooms with a heart attack, if we used to be able to get those medicines administered in 30 minutes, now we're getting them in shorter timeframe.

Steven Lipstein, President and CEO of BJC HealthCare--a $3 billion hospital system in St. Louis, Missouri--talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the economics of hospitals. They discuss pricing, the advantages and disadvantages of specialization in modern medical care, and culture and governance of non-profit hospitals vs. for-profit hospitals. At the end they talk about the positives and negatives of a national health board patterned after the Federal Reserve.