New Solutions to Healthcare Delivery

A fascinating blog was recently written in a Harvard Business Review blog explaining why our efforts to change the way we delivery healthcare might not work. 

For a while now the discussion has focused around how our healthcare providers are compensated – fee for service vs. paying for patient outcomes. It’s no secret that many providers are motivated and incentivized by their payment structure, however this blog argues, rather convincingly, that we need to change much more than the payment structure if we want to change how healthcare is delivered today. This blog offers 4 ways that we might be able to achieve the kind of change we are looking for.

1. “Let doctors be doctors, not managers.” It’s true that physicians now days have so much more to do than just provide care for their patients. Perhaps if we allow physicians to just concentrate on the healthcare delivery, then we could see more efficient outcomes.

2. “Develop standard protocols for care.” Relativity is the enemy of efficiency. If we can help hospitals and providers to offer care using standardization, we will see more efficient outcomes.

3. “Hold people accountable for the little things. An endemic problem in many healthcare institutions is the unfinished task. Who is accountable for stocking the amoxicillin? For making sure the bathrooms are clean? For fixing patient beds? For paying vendors? These small tasks make a big difference to the experiences—and survival—of patients. We use simple tools like pareto analysis of drug use and reports of patient-centered outcomes to hold providers and their managers accountable to the care they deliver.”

4. “Invest in technologies that promote efficiency and transparency” Change is difficult for most of us, but it’s even more difficult for healthcare providers that have been doing things the same for decades. The average healthcare provider today is not a spring chicken, and they are not used to the technology changes that many of us are. However, this is an important step to moving healthcare into a more efficient industry.

I believe that these four suggestions are spot on. It’s amazing to know that healthcare challenges are global, and we can learn a lot about ourselves by looking abroad.

Share your Thoughts:

What do you think about the suggestions to change/solve the healthcare challenges? Do you think health policy should be involved in implementing some of these ideas?

Thank you to Baylor MBA Healthcare Program for encouraging creative solutions to complex health care and policy difficulties.

Sources:

https://hbr.org/2015/04/fixing-health-care-will-require-more-than-a-new-payment-system

https://rmsbunkerblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/what-is-an-aco.jpg