Integrated health care touted. (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Chmn. Charles Heimbold Jr.)

NEW YORK - An integrated health care system, including significant contributions from pharmacists, holds the key to better patient care, the new chairman of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) said at the group's annual meeting.

Providers, payers and patients should be viewed as interlocking parts of a whole, according to Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. chairman and chief executive officer Charles Heimbold Jr., who was elected the PhRMA's 1996-97 chairman. He contrasted that approach with "the current myopic fixation" on component costs.

"In our desperation to control costs, a kind of mentality has taken over where least expensive has too often taken the place of most effective," he said. "But squeeze one end of the system and the other just pops out. Cheap doesn't mean inexpensive, because at the end of the day, as a growing body of evidence suggests, component cost containment may only mean cost shifting - or worse, actual increases in total costs."

Addressing a particular concern of retail pharmacy, Heimbold pointed out that …