Creating customer-focused health care organizations

Most health care organizations ave operating under an "old paradigm" wherei n the needs of physicians and third party payers drive the organization. In the current hypercompetitive health care markets, executives need to focus more directly an their increasingly assertive and knowledgeable patient cu stomers. This article describes practices of the best guest-services organi zations that may be transferable to health services organizations. It also proposes ten principles that constitute the "new paradigm".