So you pay on the basis of outcomes.

Yes, Dr. Davis?

I like that idea.

Do you think that that is possible to do that, to set up a system like that?

It is almost like a crescendo now of different things--bankruptcy because of medical bills, businesses forced to scale back their benefits.

This is third and final one in the series, in terms of what is happening, in terms of coverage, lack of coverage, cost of insurance.

It sounds like the kind of thing that you cannot do in one fell swoop.

But I think--I end up spending a ton of money on programmers programming to get the data that he needs--even if I automated the darn thing, I would still be spending buckets of money on programmers to get the data out he needs to report…

You have got to have that. And then--but going overboard on some of this stuff--I mean, I have got to believe that that 350 pages really--no one really looks at that.

I am just wondering what we should do nationally, maybe through Medicare or something else, to try to encourage other hospitals to go that route.

Just one last question for you Dr. Mentel. How did you convince Mayo to come up with the capital for this?

Well, if you have got some suggestions on how we do that, I would like to know.

I just wonder if, in some of the debate that is coming up on Medicare and stuff, I know it is all focused mostly on prescription drugs, but I am wondering if we should not--when the horse is leaving the barn to try to get on some of this…

I do not know where one ends and one begins.

We really need to look at cost and quality, what is effective, what is scientifically sound, and have a mechanism for doing that.

Well, these are all very stimulating, and I think there are some suggestions I got this morning...

I mean, we are open for suggestions, written suggestions, that you might have on some little fixes we might do.

I can say, about each one of you, you are sort of on the cutting edge of what we have got to be doing...