Roughly 75,000 deaths might have been averted in 2005 if every state in the United States had delivered care at the quality level of the best performing state.

Some numbers are unforgettable. The statistic above was featured in a new Institute of Medicine
report that found that inefficiencies, rising costs and increasing complexities have significantly impacted the United States health care system for many years. These issues have slowed industry progress in some of the following ways:

• Health care costs have increased at a greater rate than the economy as a whole for 31 of the past 40 years.
• Approximately 30 percent of health spending in 2009 – $750 billion – was wasted on expenditures like unnecessary services, excessive administrative costs and fraud.
• The value of a 30 percent increase in income was destroyed by a 76 percent increase in health care costs.

Now the good news. The report also found that new, technology driven tools we did not have at our disposal 12 years ago – including mobile technologies and electronic health records – offer a great deal of potential to capture and share health data better. The power of these resources is vast, as these new technologies can be accessed to collect and tap clinical data at the point of care, engaging patients and their families as well as fostering team work and transparency within health care organizations.