<P>The United States spends more than 17% of its GDP on healthcare, while other developed countries average 8.7% of GDP on healthcare expenditures. All this spending doesn¿t equate to value, quality, or performance, however. Among 11 high-income countries, the United States healthcare industry ranked last during the past seven years in four key performance categories: administrative efficiency, access to care, equity, and healthcare outcomes.</P><P>This book presents the implantable medical device (IMD) supply chain ecosystem as a microcosm of how these challenges of affordability and healthcare outcomes are created and are allowed to fester. The IMD Spiderweb, as the authors call it, is exposed as an example of how a wide range of participants¿including physicians, health system CEOs, group purchasing organizations, health insurance companies, and supply chain executives¿become ensnared in a web designed to benefit only one player.</P><P>Health systems in the United States pay as much