“Currently, some 50% of the US population has a chronic disease, creating an epidemic, and 86% of health care costs are attributable to chronic disease. The medical profession and its leadership did not recognize or respond appropriately to the rising prevalence of chronic disease. As a consequence, a health care crisis emerged, with inadequate access to care and quality of care together with excessive costs. In the years since the 1950s, when the chronic disease prevalence grew, the clinical literature did not follow. It remained preoccupied with acute disease. Similarly, medical education did not change. Studies and critiques gave little or modest attention to the rising dominance of chronic disease and neglected elements of good care.  Now, the medical profession and its leadership are confronted by the responsibility to build a practice of medicine with a health care system that better meet the needs of patients with chronic illness & reduces the health care crisis.”.

National Library of Medicine NIH