During my visit, I had an opportunity to meet with some executives of one of Shanghai’s largest health delivery systems. Speaking through interpreters, we discussed how the use of advanced analytics can help transform the quality and cost of care. One of the most significant contrasts I noticed between this discussion and others I’ve participated in was the marked lack of focus on financial analytics. Because China’s health care system is government funded, hospital systems are less driven to focus their time and energy on issues like reimbursement — a major driver of costs here in the US for both hospital systems (who are forced to employ armies of reimbursement experts to get paid for the patient services they deliver) and the patients (who can face anything from rising co-pays to bankruptcies due to escalating health care costs). The entire focus of our conversation was how to help patients get better health outcomes.