Drastically improving health care with focus on managing the patient with a disease: the macro and micro perspective.

The disease management approach to improving health care, at the systems as well as the hospital level, has proved to be very powerful, producing unprecedented results in reducing costs while improving quality of care and patient satisfaction. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), working with a variety of leading managed care providers and pharmaceutical clients, has pioneered the development and dissemination of the disease management concept. Describes the disease management approach at the system level and shows results achieved so far. Shows also how the application of the logic of disease management within the boundaries of a single hospital leads to fundamental changes and quantum-leap results. In outlining the key success factors for a change process following the disease management approach, focusing on the patient with a disease, shows how the approach differs from traditional hospital re-engineering.