Earlier this week, the Institute of Medicine, a department at the National Academy of Sciences released a report detailing about $750 billion wasted by inefficiencies in the healthcare system. Additionally, the report found that nearly 75,000 deaths could have been prevented had all states performed as well as the current best. Ironically, these two shortcomings have a unified solution. Healthcare reform has the potential to both reduce costs and improve care at the same time, and yet meaningful healthcare reform has been a pipe dream since at least the 1990s. Many of these issues are related to the principal agent problems that exist on both the healthcare, administrative/insurance, and political fronts, how do you think incentives could be better aligned in order to affect improvements on the system?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/health/policy/waste-and-promise-seen-in-us-health-care-system.html?_r=1&ref=health
It is extremely disappointing to hear of the waste of money that is occurring because of our current healthcare system. However, the most alarming fact from this article has to be the amount of deaths that potentially could have been saved. The inefficiencies that are occurring create longstanding impacts that damage many aspects of our healthcare system. If I were to suggest one improvement that could possibly reduce these inefficiencies, I would focus on increasing the sharing of data and information between doctors, pharmacies and researchers. With increased information comes better methods and techniques for the medical world and an overall better healthcare system.
ReplyDeleteI feel like some type of reward system could have potentially effective results. Professor David Cutler talks about this briefly in the article, specficially with doctors being rewarded for procedure outcomes, rather than the number completed. This idea could also be applied on a larger scale to hospitals as a whole, rather than just individual doctors. For example, have some type of incentive in place for hospitals that are operating more efficiently, in order to cut come of that $210 billion in unnecessary services. I suppose it could be difficult to come up with an organized system of rewards for such actions, but unfortunately, without offering such incentives, we may not see any changes in the current system any time soon.
ReplyDeleteIt is really sad how much money we wasted and how many deaths we let basically go. I think that is quite pathetic that it has come to that level, and that incentives may be needed to fix a problem like this. I agree with Brandon that more information between doctors should put everyone on a higher, and similar ground when it comes to saving lives and not wasting so much money. If incentive is necessary, then so be it but ideally, it shouldn't ever have to come to this I don't think.
ReplyDeleteIt will be very interesting to see the changes to proposed healthcare in the upcoming election. We live in a country that is riddled with financial strains. Some of these we see in numbers everyday, like the national debt and the aftershock of our recession. While other problems are more looming, such as the fiscal cliff, and the hardships of the debt crisis in Europe. These are concrete financial dilemmas about money management, so is it really a surprise that our bureaucracy struggles with healthcare economics as well?
ReplyDeleteTo fix the system of healthcare would mean that it has to take some priority in the eyes of Americans. However in this election year the overarching economy is the real issue in the foreground. Healthcare will take some power as well, but with the complexities inherent in any/all proposed changes- it will also be difficult for many Americans to keep focus. It is so much easier to merely spew rhetoric about "job creation" and "tax cuts" instead. Jargon about medicare advantage, and supplement stipends could easily lost in a sea of larger issues. The American people need to put more focus on the healthcare system as an electoral issue, if they want anything to change in the future.