ProvenCare. Of all the wellness plans, HSA tools, and care pitches we hear in the name of "patient-centeredness," the truest example of a policy designed with the consumer in mind is Steele's ProvenCare. What could be easier to understand, and more reassuring to receive, than the pledge from your caregiver that "the price is 'X' and will never be 'Y' -- and 'oh BTW, if it doesn't work, you won't pay.'" This is consumer-driven healthcare. Most other "consumer" concepts still have employer-, payor-, or provider-profits in mind, making them decorative, by comparison, to ProvenCare. An oncologist and surgeon, Dr. Steele joined Geisinger in 2001. He initiated Proven Care in 2006 with bypass surgery (CABG), he has said, because it is frequently performed, well refined and has low rates of mortality and complication. It is also more lucrative than other procedures, which just swell the carrot to "get it right." Of course, executing this performance policy would've been imprudent without first routinizing the procedure to minimize error. And so the nut of ProvenCare's success is revealed. It's not Geisinger's talented surgeons. It's the 40-step-guide-to-a-good-CABG. Doctors are incented to follow it, which is Steele padding his odds, but who cares? ProvenCare patients have experienced shorter hospital stays, smaller bills, and Geisinger says readmission rates dropped 45 percent in the first year. Like other check list-innovations we favor ( Gawande), ProvenCare can be replicated for new types of procedures, "ported" to other hospital systems, and it's pretty darned easy to follow. Plus, there are no equipment installation fees. Which reiterates our happy truth: We don't have to invest billions of dollars on technology to make a very big difference in healthcare. Besides ProvenCare, Dr. Steele has created a venture capital unit at Geisinger. 

Speaking to Fast Company 2008: "We shouldn't get paid if we don't do the right thing."