GREER -- South Carolina's biggest manufacturers and organizations are banding together to try to improve health care in the Upstate.

The goals include healthier Upstate residents, slower increases in health-care costs and more competitive businesses.

The 10 founding members of the South Carolina Business Coalition on Health announced the nonprofit community action organization and its goals Wednesday at the BMW Zentrum.

The coalition plans to rent office space and hire two people to coordinate its work, said Bob Baugh of Mitsubishi Polyester Film, chairman of the group, which is inviting more employers -- business, government, health care and education -- to join.

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A tentative list of issues that could be addressed are group purchasing, performance guides, best practice guides, community health resource guides, workplace clinics and pharmacies, such as the private pharmacy BMW recently opened for its employees and their dependents.

BMW's pharmacy "has captivated the imagination of our folks," said Bobby Hitt, BMW Manufacturing Co.'s public relations manager. He added that about 80 percent of BMWs 4,500 employees use the pharmacy. The coalition also will measure the quality of hospitals, physicians and health plans. It will promote incentives and education for a healthier lifestyle. It also will try to help control prescription medicine prices.

"This is not a super-managed health-care system. We don't want to pit providers against each other," Baugh said. Employees probably won't see much of a difference initially, as each business will retain its own health plan.

Eventually, workers could see an impact because coalition efforts "could blunt the increase" in costs, said Jerry Burgess, president and chief executive officer of HealthCare 21 Business Coalition, a similar organization that has been in existence in Knoxville, Tenn., for about 10 years.

"This group will be the megaphone, the voice of the community" on health-care issues, Burgess said "You're attacking cost by attacking quality."

Baugh said the coalition is "a collaborative effort to improve quality and improve cost" in the health-care system.

The employers are partnering with health-care providers, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and others involved in health care to come up with best practices when it comes to both quality and cost.

Frank Pinckney, Greenville Hospital Systems chief executive officer, said health-care system improvements would only result through the collaboration of such groups and consumers.

"I think we need to be a part of this process," he said. "The community wins" through efforts to improve quality and cost.

"Why not use South Carolina as a laboratory for the changes in health care?" Hitt said. "We have all the elements."

One possible way of reducing costs and improving quality is educating consumers on how to access the health-care system, said Tony Bell, Spartanburg County's director of human resources.

That means encouraging them to use emergency rooms only for medical emergencies. Consumers must take responsibility for some of the changes needed to improve the health-care system, he said.

"The stakes couldn't be higher," said Jim Micali, chairman and president of Michelin North America. "In 2004, U.S. employer health premiums increased by more than 11 percent nearly four times the rate of inflation."

He also pointed out that the United States spends more than $5,000 per person per year on health care.

Yet, "The general health of our population ranks among the poorest of the industrialized world. While we'd like to think that our economic, educational and technical strengths give this country an advantage resulting in the best medical care in the world, the fact is this is no longer true," Micali said.

South Carolina's health status is ranked 49th in the nation, Baugh said. About $1.5 trillion -- 15 percent of the nation's $10 trillion economy -- is spent each year on health care.

"Clearly, spending more has not produced the improvement in the quality of the health of our community that we want," Micali said.

Besides the increasing cost to employers and their workers, "The spiraling inflation of health-care costs indeed make U.S. businesses far less competitive in the marketplace," he said.

Increased health-care costs also "have resulted in lower wage and salary increases than otherwise would have been given," he said.