A linchpin in health care reform is measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of individuals and institutions in providing treatment. Another is measuring the effectiveness of different therapies for different conditions, presented in different circumstances.
Measuring Therapeutic Effectiveness and Cost–One Part of Better Care for All
Posted by steven_spear | Under Innovation, health care, high velocity organizations, organizational learning, process excellence Sunday Mar 15, 2009Measuring Value-Added, not Compliance, Key to Health Care Reform
Posted by steven_spear | Under Business Strategy, Stimulus Package, health care, high velocity organizations Monday Mar 9, 2009Gina Kolata’s article about sketchy medical imaging (”Good or Useless, Medical Scans Cost the Same“ NY Times March 1, 2009) is an eloquent specific example of why we have such high health care costs and such poor performance–compromised access, often terrible quality, and tremendous risk of otherwise avoidable harm. The problem? We pay providers based on the time and resources they consume providing care, instead of measuring the value they create in delivering care. Without reliable measures of provider quality, patients and payers are handicapped when picking whom to trust their bodies and bullion, relying instead on self-referrals and on institutional reputations based on factors tangentially related to efficacy. This makes no more sense than buying cars based on material and labor costs, regardless of scrap rates and idle time. Read the rest of this entry »
Outlearning the Competition to Out Race the Competition
Posted by steven_spear | Under Business Strategy, high velocity organizations, organizational learning, process excellence Thursday Mar 5, 2009Knowing what to do and how to do it is learned by building expertise and mental models, testing those in practice, and building ones when the old ideas fail. High velocity organizations incorporate creation of useful knowledge directly into process design and process improvement. As a result, they out improve, out innovate, and out invent their rivals. They out learn them, so they out race them. How they do so is a vital lesson now, when old answers on how to compete no longer apply. Read the rest of this entry »
Federal Policy–Does the treatment fit the cause?
Posted by steven_spear | Under Business Strategy, Economy recovery, high velocity organizations Wednesday Mar 4, 2009Federal policy to fix the mess we are in will work only if it addresses the mess’s causes. Those causes are related to uncertainty that make contracting and transacting too risky. Hence, the system seizes up, like an engine drawing on a blocked fuel line.
Debate over ED Downsizing Consequence of Flawed Paradigm…
Posted by steven_spear | Under health care, high velocity organizations, process excellence Monday Mar 2, 2009Cutting beds in a crucial emergency department to cut costs is indicative of the flawed thinking that afflicts health care. Time and resources are currently used at their maximum efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, to get more care, we have to spend more. If we must spend less, we must treat less. Wrong. There is overwhelming evidence that better care can be provided to more people at less cost when more sophisticated management approaches are used.