Institutional change in health care: opportunities in the coming crisis

Purpose – Aims to review institutional change in health care and to look for opportunities in what the author sees as a coming crisis.Design/methodology/approach – A consultant on health‐care systems reviews the forces driving transformation in medicine, including new technologies, telemedicine, and prevention.Findings – Finds forces driving transformation in medicine limited in addressing the crisis of spiraling cost and mediocre, overly complex treatment.Originality/value – Concludes that a dramatic shift in perspective is coming as baby boomers are forced to face the inevitability of death in positive terms.