Wisconsin Assn. has Well-Rounded Program

Over the next decade, health care expenditures will continue to increase, not only in total dollars, but as a percent of Gross National Product. Despite increasing government and institutional efforts to contain costs, we believe that the underlying demand factors will be strong enough to more than compensate for constraints on growth in expenditures.

Exerting strong pressures on demand will be demographic influences, particularly the ?graying” of America and related greater use of health care facilities by senior citizens; expansion of both private and public insurance coverage; and intensification of care due to medical and technological advances. Nevertheless, we expect cost containment pressures to influence the delivery of health care, particularly deployment of services.

We believe these changes will be accompanied by growing recognition that the health care industry is a business and thus can benefit from application of modern management techniques.

We expect health care to evolve from a fragmented cottage industry into a more integrated national system. This shift will be accompanied by greater use of technology, not only to support new medical advances and expand the delivery of health care services, but more importantly, to increase the efficiency and quality of health care service delivery.