This article in today’s NY Times is in sync with us to be sure. Real Health Reform has been advocating a series of major changes to the overall health system in order to accomplish REAL REFORM. See THE PLAN in the section heading here for extended details. What is also needed is reform of the medical licensing system, to allow doctors to be licensed nationally and not just state by state, as well a uniform “information technology backbone” to build a sustainable health information grid upon. Large players like Google and WebMD are doing aspects of this on a subsidized scale while smaller innovators like IC Sciences (www.icscience.com) and AthenaHealth (www.athenahealth.com) to name but a few, are working on direct contracting models with providers (physician practices, hospitals, insurers and health plans) to integrate “information therapy” and “front desk and back office functions” onto an e-platform. We must keep pushing for these fundamental “rule changes” in order to get Real Health Reform. Mantras about universal coverage are empty rhetoric which in the end accomplish little but headlines and a feeling of moral superiority by those who spout them . . . obi jo
Disruptive Innovation, Applied to Health Care
Janet Rae-Dupree writes . . . Two main causes of the system’s ills are century-old business models, for the general hospital and the physician’s practice, both of which are based on treating illness, not promoting wellness. Hospitals and doctors are paid by insurers and the government for the health care equivalent of piecework: hospitals profit from full beds and doctors profit from repeat visits. There is no financial incentive to keep patients healthy.
“The business models were all created decades ago, and acute disease drove those costs at the time, most businesses in this industry are looking at their business model as entirely immutable. They’re looking for innovative offerings that fit this frozen model.”
Advances in technology and medical research are making it possible to envision an entirely new health care system that provides more individualized care without necessarily increasing costs, some health care experts say.
read more @ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/business/01unbox.html?ref=health