Stephen C Schimpff's Blog Posts Tagged 'prevention' (7)

“An ounce of prevention” we all know is good medicine. An example is colonoscopy. It was time for mine so after some lengthy procrastination I called and set up an appointment which I soon found a perfectly good reason to postpone for a few weeks. A common occurrence. The government wants me (and you) to not procrastinate, at least not because of the cost. The Affordable Care…

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Imagine a person that develops an acute problem that requires hospitalization and even a time in the ICU. Serious but something that modern medical care can deal with and cure. Until …the patient now develops an unexpected serious infection and despite excellent and appropriate medical care, dies. Unfortunately this scenario is all too common in today’s hospitals.

 

More than 100,000 Americans die each year from hospital acquired infections; that is the infection developed only…

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There are many misconceptions about health care and medical care. This includes the discussions over the last few years about healthcare reform but is not limited to those discussions. I plan to write about these over the coming days and weeks in some detail. Here is the first one. “American has the best healthcare system in the world.”

 

One of the first problems with this statement is that we really have a medical system in America not a healthcare system. We focus on…

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What should we expect of a physician leader today? I believe it should be something much different than what leaders do now.



Today, a hospital physician CEO might be expected to develop new or improved clinical programs, in part by recruiting the best and the brightest, by building new wings, and by purchasing new technologies. The measure of success would be improved finances as a result of added admissions. A dean might be expected to develop new research programs by building new… Continue

The decade ahead is one likely to be full of turbulence. How everything will shake out is anybody’s guess.



But we can be sure that technology advancements will slow for no one. The rate of medical technology advancement now is very fast and the speed will only accelerate. One big problem is that technology advances so fast that there is no time for a purchase – say new CT scanner or diagnostic device in a clinical laboratory – to create any return on the investment before a new or… Continue

On May 12, 2010 the Harvard Business Review ran this post of mine on their web site. The original is at http://tinyurl.com/2vnpato



Prevention is the key to both better health and lower health-care costs over the long haul. This is where the nation — and each of us as individuals — needs to put energy and resources. In the long run, it is more important than addressing the high cost of new technologies and drugs or their inappropriate… Continue

Two major reasons for cost escalation are lack of good care coordination of those with complex chronic illnesses and inadequate attention to prevention and screening. PCPs are key to both of these but they have too little time per patient and are not paid for either activity. About 5% of all healthcare expenditures go to PCPs but they can have a major impact on the other 95%, especially with good care coordination of chronic illness and with a focus on prevention.



To fix this, PCPs… Continue