I recently jumped at the opportunity to attend the 2013 Healthcare Innovation Summit at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Subtitled IT-Enabled Disruption, it featured opening keynote speaker Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, Stanford psychologist and lecturer Dr. Kelly McGonigal, and many other interesting people asking – how do we change health care? I knew little of Mr. Bertolini and nothing of Dr. McGonigal and the former made me think differently about the role of insurers in the new health care reform world and the latter reinforced my belief that the current trend in pushing the complete onus of health squarely on the individual may be too simplistic. But for me, the real reason for going was to hear three of the most fascinating people in health care. First, Dr. Abraham Verghese, Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford, who is world renowned for his belief in the sacred […] Read More »
Category Archives: Other
Abraham Verghese, Vinod Khosla, Robert Pearl – The Future of Healthcare – Stanford Innovation Summit
Posted on May 3, 2013
2013 – Year of the Physician Leader
Posted on April 8, 2013
In a time of crisis is when leaders step forward. If our nation faces one crisis, then it is that of the health care system which increasingly is unaffordable and trails other industrialized countries in quality and access. If there was a time leadership was needed then it would be now. As doctors, we should be providing this leadership. No longer can we let others dictate how health care should look. No longer can we simply abdicate responsibility to our patients by claiming that how much treatments or therapies cost are not our issue or our concern. As healers we need to do more than ever. If there is optimism for our future, then it is due to the examples set by health care organizations that are actively solving the issues of cost, quality, and access and the commensurate rise of physician leadership, which is increasingly apparent through engagement with […] Read More »
Malcolm Gladwell and David Goldhill Interview on Health Care – Disappointing, Dangerous, Frightening
Posted on April 1, 2013
In part two of my analysis of David Goldhill’s proposal to fix health care, I promised to blog about his interview with my favorite author, thinker, and fellow Canadian, Malcolm Gladwell. Goldhill, a businessman, lost his father to a hospital acquired infection and witnessed multiple errors during that hospitalization which compelled him to write not only a piece in the September 2009 Atlantic titled How American Health Care Killed My Father, but also a new book titled, Catastrophic Care – How American Health Care Killed My Father — and How We Can Fix It. The question is does his solution offer hope? If it was based purely on his interview with Gladwell, the answer would be no. Goldhill perspective of health care boils down to this: health care suffers from distorted thinking that is different that other industries. His simple solution is that health care should not be treated any special […] Read More »
Why This Family Doctor Blogs and Writes – The Thrifty Patient
Posted on March 24, 2013
As a doctor, I am compelled to write because of what I know is occurring with alarming frequency in our country. Americans are skipping needed and recommended care that could save their lives and allow them to live to their fullest. Patients are more distracted, as life is more complicated and busier than ever. Households have both parents working, sometimes two jobs, just to make ends meet. They easily would make the right choice if someone would be willing to explain things in a simple, understandable manner. They would prefer a health care system that was so incredibly simple to use, convenient, and personalized that it would anticipate their needs so they could get the right care and get back to living life. Instead, our health care system offers patients higher co-pays, deductibles, and out-of-pocket medical expenses. It shifts the burden of making the right choices to people who frankly […] Read More »
The New Ontario Annual Physical Exam – Is It Choosing Wisely?
Posted on March 5, 2013
Is the Ontario Annual Physical Exam going the way of the dinosaur? That appears to be the case for healthy individuals between the ages of 18 to 64 in the Canadian province of Ontario. Effective in 2013, these patients no longer would have available an annual physical examination, but instead a “personalized health review”. The new personalized health review would only be available to those who were healthy and did not have medical diagnoses of cancer, diabetes, or others, in which those patients could still receive a more thorough examination. Other changes include not allowing routine chest x-rays prior to minor surgery and moving the screening rate for cervical cancer from one to every three years. The plan would save the government of Ontario about half a percent on payment to physicians as the reimbursement is less for these personalized health review. Should people in Ontario be worried that their […] Read More »
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