The world’s leading guru of competitive strategy, Michael Porter, Ph.D., has turned his sights on explaining the fundamental cause of high costs, poor quality, consumer dissatisfaction, uneven access, and skyrocketing premiums in American health care.

In Redefining Health Care, Porter and innovation expert Elizabeth Teisberg, Ph.D. provide a thoughtful, groundbreaking framework to use competition to drive dramatic increases in quality and efficiency.

Unlike many wonks who foolishly believe that health care is not a market, Drs. Porter and Teisberg see competition ” of a sort ” in operation. They show us that the current competitive environment in health care is designed to “shift costs, accumulate bargaining power, and restrict services.” That is, what we have now is dysfunctional, zero-sum competition serving to limit, even reduce value for patients. And they see all this taking place “…at the wrong level-among health plans, networks, and hospitals ” rather than where it matters most, in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of specific health conditions.”

Focusing on how to move American health care to positive-sum competition based on economic and clinical value for patients, Redefining Health Care provides a series of specific recommendations for the key players ” including physicians, hospitals, health plans, employers, Medicare, and Medicaid.