Healthcare cost/capita versus the health of a nation...

Hmmm...  I got to thinking after reading one of John Goodman's posts on the cost of Healthcare...
So....

Innovation costs money… We seem to have won that race and our cost/capita is a reflection of that reality. At the same time though, the innovations are immediately shared across the world. Now I know this is a rather generalized and seemingly unreasonable statement. If you take pharma out of the picture though, the CT machine used here is the same as the one used in Germany. The clinical practices and protocols innovated here get used in Australia.

Notwithstanding there are socio-economic differences to be taken into account. While we are criticized for our cost/capita being so much greater, relative to the health outcomes of other countries, there is never any rhetoric on the health in these other countries being bolstered by the spend in the US.

Just a thought…

Wait a minute....!!! That's all we're going to save?

Last week I spent a few days at the World Healthcare Congress just outside D.C..

Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center, located in Toledo and part of the Mercy Health and Catholic Health Partners organizations presented some very astounding outcomes they have experienced over the past two years.  In round numbers they reduced their length of stay from 5.2 to 3.8 days and at the same time reduced the operational costs to run their organization by a total of $48,000,000.  They were also able to claim a 75% reduction in preventable harm to their patient population.

I told you so....

Well it has been a while since my last post... Funny how your brain can go into processing mode while life challenges you to learn more and more...

At any rate, I find it interesting that the tested and true concept of supply and demand continues to play out in the healthcare market place.  If you recall one of my older posts discussing the repercussions of adding millions to the medicare population (demand) while at the same time not increasing the number of doctors (supply) the outcome is destined to be lower quality care...

Supply and Demand.... again....

It is no surprise to me that people are starting to wake up when it comes to their healthcare future...  Hopefully the news will spread...

This article says it again and more comprehensively than I could ever hope to achieve.

Happy reading...  http://bit.ly/dtdbg8

Alyn

Supply and Demand in Massachusetts

It looks like more people are thinking of the same topic I have blogged about.  We should get ready for what is coming....  Make sure you have your family doc secured in the next two years....  This is a good quick read from  the Associated Press.

Kind regards...  http://bit.ly/cOhn3B

Again,… Why are the basics being ignored?

I came across a good article through Rick Jackson, our CEO…  from Thomas Sowell.

One of the biggest reasons for higher medical costs is that somebody else is paying those costs, whether an insurance company or the government. What is the politicians' answer? To have more costs paid by insurance companies and the government.


Back when the "single payer" was the patient, people were more selective in what they spent their own money on. You went to a doctor when you had a broken leg but not necessarily every time you had the sniffles or a skin rash. But, when someone else is paying, that is when medical care gets over-used -- and bureaucratic rationing is then imposed, to replace self-rationing.

Healthcare and Operational Transformation

I don’t believe, in a 10 year period of time, we are going to appreciably alter the process of actual clinical care.  That is to say, going to the doctor 10 years from now is not likely to be a different experience than it is today.  If we think back 25 years to our experiences with medical care, there has not been significant change… despite, the trends of patient centered care, HMO’s and a barrage of other well meaning clinical care trends.  I think there are a number of characteristics of “medical care” culture that make altering its behavioral and cultural paradigm very difficult.  It is ultimately a very fragmented professional body… many individual professionals and numerous practices without a technology to appreciably facilitate a change in clinical practice behavior.  The real estate profession was similarly locked into a specific behavioral trend for many decades until the internet forced a change in practical behavior.  The clinical lobbies and commercial enterprises invested in clinical practice not changing are considerable.  So how can change really be affected?