[From Hospitals & Health Networks Daily, September 20, 2011] There is fire in the valley and smoke in the mountains. A plague is on the land and danger is afoot. That may be — maybe — the good news. Health care is more unstable than it has been at any time in...
Cutting costs does not cut costs. If we hope to steer health care toward a better cheaper future, we have to wrap our minds around this conundrum: Slashing spending does not necessarily improve the bottom line. Governments in Ireland and the United Kingdom have come...
A reader writes to ask: What about personal responsibility? “I see no movement afoot to require the public to accept or meet norms of behavior that would reduce the need for medical treatment—smoking, excess drinking, use of drugs, over weight, etc. What ever happened...
Under the headline, “Medicare Plan for Payments Irks Hospitals,” today’s New York Times details the opposition stirred up by the government’s “value-based purchasing” initiative. If you’re buying anything (and the US federal government is the largest purchaser of...
[Note to the reader: Anything that is in italics and square brackets (such as this note) is addressed to you, personally. Yes, you. Try it on, see if it fits.] Healthcare has, right now, the greatest opportunity we have seen in our lifetimes to make a big change, to...
It’s a backbone-brilliant concept that actually produces better healthcare, and better health, for significantly less money—and a concept that America may be too politically hypnotized to ever put into wide practice. “Evidence-based” means it’s about what really...
