We have probably destroyed a good sized forest supporting all the hundreds (thousands?) of articles, posts and commentaries decrying the failure of the U.S. health care system to meet higher standards of quality. But why do we have a quality problem? I know of not a single page of explanation.
Until now. A post at the Health Affairs blog is the first of a three-part blog giving the answer — based on a paper written by Gerry Musgrave, Devon Herrick and yours truly.
I will blog on this here in the near future.
I saw the original article. Good piece.
Firms choose to invest in the type of competition that maximizes profits. In the presence of third-party payment, hospitals have little reason to compete on efficiency and price. Our current system does not penalize poor quality; nor does it reward high quality. Thus, hospitals have little reason to invest in quality-enhancing activities that do not generate revenue.
Very interesting piece. When do we get to see the next two parts?
Excellent piece. Very original.
I think that, on the consumer side, the single most important thing we can do is make outcomes data easily accessible and easy to understand for the average consumer. The sooner people make choices based on outcomes, the sooner we save money by lowering readmission, lowering costs of infections and complications, and create actual evidence-based medicine.