Note. Information (?) flows from patient to physician. Care and information (+) flow back to the patient. Financial flows ($) proceed from employers (employer) to insurers (insurer; private or public) and thence to care providers (doctors), who provide to insurers information (?) about the care being provided to individual patients (patients). Insurers receive lump sum payments, which are distributed in much smaller amounts to care providers for specific services.

Note. Schematic illustration of complexity C(k) (vertical axis) as a function of scale, k (horizontal axis). A system with the highest possible fine-scale complexity corresponds to a system with independent parts (curve a). When all parts act together, the system has the largest-scale behavior but the same low value of complexity at all scales (curve b). Complex systems have various possible scales of behavior, as illustrated by one example (curve c).

Note. The proposed new public health component (left box) provides efficient population-based care (+) to its customers, including employers (as shown by the upper left arrows), private insurers, government agencies, or individuals (similar to high-efficiency fast food and other mass market products or services); arrows are not shown for the latter cases. Moreover, it refers (gray arrows) those who need individualized care to the other part of the healthcare system (with interactions and symbols as in Figure 1) that is focused on individualized care.