United Healthcare 2002 Annual Report Download - page 10

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{9}
An inevitable result of these circumstances is overuse, misuse and underuse of health care
resources. Overuse and misuse are wasteful and increase the likelihood of harm and error.
Underuse is equally detrimental since it is critical that individuals obtain the right care at the
right time. All of these situations carry negative economic and health consequences.
We need to increase the individual’s role in the appropriate use and preservation of health care
resources and, at the same time, help individual consumers optimize their decision processes.
National leadership in this matter is critical. Several steps are appropriate:
> Delivering sustained education programs for school, workplace and clinical settings that
focus on appropriate health care use and resource conservation.
> Encouraging development of information sources for consumers that are void of
commercial bias.
> Developing media channels that will effectively counterbalance — through enlightened
individual responsibility — the intense commercial advertising that has stimulated often
indiscriminate consumption of pharmaceuticals, diagnostic services and early-stage medical
interventions.
> Creating well-defined guidelines and incentives to establish evidence-based care as the
appropriate care standard, with financial deterrents for excessive or non-evidence-based services.
Each of us individually bears a critical responsibility to use our finite health care resources
intelligently. Only in that way will we be able to serve all those in need, without regard to financial
status. This type of enlightened individual stewardship has been a cornerstone of many great
societal advancements made in our country. Our successes in land and water management in
earlier decades became a model to other nations for not only conservation but even restoration
of natural resources. Individual commitment coordinated with legislative and industrial
initiatives was at the core of those successes. Comparable success in such matters as the war on
drugs, automobile safety and the availability and importance of higher education occurred
because individuals became involved under governmental sponsorship to remedy problems of
national interest and proportion. We must individually and collectively bring the same focused
cooperation to health care.