Quad/Graphics Creates Innovative Health Solution: In-House Clinics

Quad/Graphics, based in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, is substantially owned by its 12,000 employees through a profit sharing plan. Known as one of the nation's most innovative and participative companies, Quad/Graphics recently made the front page of the Wall Street Journal (February 11, 2005) for its in-company health care clinic. The company hires doctors and nurses who see each patient for not less than 30 minutes. The doctors help employees focus on wellness as well as treatment of medical conditions. While Quad spends a lot more on primary care than other companies, it spends a lot less on hospitalization, reducing overall health costs, bringing net costs down. Better yet, employees are measurably healthier by a wide margin than the general population, partly because doctors' pay is based not on how many patients they see (as in most health care systems) but how well the patients do who they do see. Measures such as the percentage of pregnancies resulting in Caesarian sections, the number of people with high blood pressure treating it, and other benchmarks can be compared to national norms to see how Quad employees are doing. Doctors like working in the system because they can focus more on helping the patient than in other environments. The program has been so successful that Quad is now selling the system to other companies.