This past week has been filled with great articles that show the stunning gap between what we know and what we need to do in health care to make it more affordable, accessible, and higher quality. In a recent piece by NPR, research shows that when it comes to treatment of low back pain, doctors are prescribing more powerful pain medications (narcotics) and ordering more imaging tests like MRI and CT scans when there is no evidence these are better than anti-inflammatories, time, and rest. Reasons for gap? Solutions to make the care provided for low back pain more evidence and scientifically based, we first needed guidelines. In the past, we didn’t have guidelines. Now we have had guidelines for quite sometime. However, we also know it takes 17 years for an idea to spread to be commonly practiced and become the norm. So to help make change happen more […] Read More »
Tag Archive for health care reform
Getting the Best Hospital Care – Beyond the Hype Over Hospital Rankings
Posted on July 28, 2013
The New York Times recently published an article titled, “The Hype Over Hospital Rankings”. It is that time of year when hospitals tout their US News and World report rankings and crank out their marketing programs. Perhaps this is even important with health care reform, decreasing reimbursement, and a push towards a more consumer driven market. Hospitals are jockeying for position. “Nearly every hospital has a banner out front saying they’re a ‘top hospital’ for something in some rating system,” said Dr. Nicholas Osborne, a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Michigan. “Those ratings have become more important for hospital marketing than for actually helping patients find the best care.”” So, how do you find the best care? Especially in health care when there is information asymmetry? Here is an excerpt from my book – The Thrifty Patient – Vital Insider Tips For Saving Money and Staying […] Read More »
Recasting the Patient as Consumer – Good Idea? Consumer Driven Health Care?
Posted on June 13, 2013
Are patients now consumers? 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? Recasting the Patient as Consumer As a practicing primary care doctor, the most intriguing session was labeled – “Recasting the Patient as Consumer”. I have major reservations that this is what patients really want. I have some skepticism on whether consumer driven health care can truly make care more affordable (here, here, here, and here). Was the current fad of pushing the onus of health squarely on the individual may be too simplistic? Panel members included: Ron Gutman, founder and CEO of HealthTap Bassam Kadry, Anesthesiologist and Participatory Medicine Advocate Ann Lamont, Managing Partner of […] Read More »
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 »
Is David Goldhill Fix For Health Care Right?
Posted on March 12, 2013
First I believe our health care system must be better so I’m always curious to hear how others might propose to fix it. I recently had the opportunity to listen in two conversations with businessman David Goldhill about how healthcare might be made better. Goldhill lost his father to a hospital acquired infection and witnessed multiple errors during his 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: Why Everything We Think We Know about Health Care Is Wrong (Vintage). The first conversation was with New Yorker writer and best selling author Malcolm Gladwell. The second with Professor Ashish Jha, MD, MPH of Harvard medical school and Harvard School of Public Health. Does his solution offer the right prescription? Maybe. Maybe not. As a practicing primary care doctor passionate […] Read More »
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