New concepts in health care: some preliminary ideas.

Health care discussions in many countries tend to focus on cost containment without taking into account the problem of quality of care. The starting point for our ideas is the description of quality as the optimal relation between care demander and care provider. The difficulties in assessing quality of care are outlined. The question remains which health care model offers the best opportunities to have both high quality care and affordable costs. A proposal is made for a model in which the care demander and care provider, i.e. the client and physician, are natural allies. A special role is fulfilled by the family physician: a key role, as case manager, as gatekeeper. Special attention should be directed towards the financial consequences. It is proposed that small-scale experiments should be started to evaluate the model advanced in the text.