We know technology brings prosperity. The bigger question is will it bring progress? What does progress in health care look like?
It’s worth taking a page from Toyota’s book: ‘We build people before we build cars.’
We’re there. Our country’s health care system has earned many superlatives: fanciest ho(tel)spitals, latest surgical technology, access to the most effective drugs.
Then why are our nurses leaving? Why are most hospitals operating in the red this year? Why can’t our payers afford it anymore? Why are so many people forgoing treatment?
Children don’t need a mansion, the latest technology, and their own cars in order to become responsible and functioning citizens. Warmth, inspiration, and guidance can nurture them without any of these.
The problem of our health care is not a problem of medicine or technology. If it was, we would be killing it. It’s a social problem.
Help them make good on their goals.
What are they counting on you for?
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” –MLK, Jr.
Almost all hospitals intentionally withhold the actual price of services and make pricing data difficult to access. Their very existence depends on this tactic.
To their recognition, nearly 25% of the 2,000 hospitals reviewed by patientrightsadvocate.org are now compliant with federal price transparency rules.
Every experiment we try gets us one step closer to those better outcomes.
Sweeping it under the rug; shifting the blame; making it a problem for others can secure us–for now.
Change can be done to us, or by us. If it’s done by us, we get to do the work we’re proud of.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.
We’ve been indoctrinated into how it’s done around here. But it wasn’t always done like this. Someone had an idea…and it changed reality!
Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years. -Bill Gates
Did you know that the archetype for current insurance plans was founded by the Baptist Church in 1903?
Did you know that during the first half of the 1900s, patients paid on an informal sliding scale in proportion to their income?
Did you know that physician assistants (PAs) became a thing in the late 1960s/early 1970s? There was a perceived shortage of doctors; at the same time, a new labor pool presented itself: combat medics returning from Vietnam needed employment and possessed practical skills. That’s when universities started PA programs.
Did you know that DRGs didn’t exist until the mid-1980s? Medicare implemented it to curb the runaway payments to hospitals.
Did you know that it’s only in the 1980s and 1990s that ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) became increasingly popular. It was mostly individual doctors and investors that were seeking them out.
Did you know that in the 1990s, doctors commonly complained that they made less per hour than plumbers?
Did you know that it wasn’t until the late 1990s buy-and-bill truly became commonplace? The trend was started by a pharmaceutical company.
Did you know that it’s around 2000 when hospitals began to compensate physicians in proportion to relative value units (RVUs) (instead just a fixed salary) to encourage them to see more patients and bring in more revenue?
Did you know that Medicare Part D was enacted recently in 2006, under a Republican president? The government didn’t offer prescription drug coverage for people >65 until then because medicines were always relatively cheap.
Thanks to Elisabeth Rosenthal’s book, “An American Sickness” for these insights. When you shine a flashlight, both you and I can see better.
Leaders shouldn’t be preparing the team for something. They should help them prepare themselves for anything.
Pulling is more efficient than pushing.
Ask the engine at the front of the train.
We can foster positive changes in the future simply by engaging and interacting more with those we do not engage and interact with normally. Engagement and interaction start conversations; conversations build relationships; relationships foster understanding, empathy, equity, and inclusion.
Understanding, empathy, equity, and an inclusive mindset are the tools needed to be successful in an uncertain future.
Yup! It’s that simple.
Get up and talk to him. Pick up the phone and call him. Knock on his door. Go.
Great tactical planning is the art of identifying the crippling constraints and easing them—or working around them.
Anyone can make an average tactical plan that fits inside the box as others see it. The art is in getting right to the edges of the box; or being able to see in new dimensions that others are too rushed or too inexperienced to see.
“Exploitation of the constraint should be the kernel of tactical planning – ensuring the best performance the system can draw now. For this reason, the responsibility for exploitation lies with line managers who must provide the plan and communicate it so that everyone else understands the exploitation scheme for the immediate future.” –Dettmer
