NYTimes op-ed discusses how to lower costs, increase quality in American healthcare
To boost quality and lower healthcare costs, it’s not necessary for the American healthcare system to adopt a foreign model, but rather to look to successful models that exist within the U.S. That’s the message from an op-ed piece that appeared this weekend in the New York Times, written by Atul Gawande, Donald Berwick, Elliot Fisher and Mark McClellan. These four healthcare leaders invited teams from ten regions of the country that were considered “high performing” to meet and discuss why residents in their areas received higher quality healthcare at a lower cost than the rest of the nation.
Many of the teams interviewed used methods such as employing physicians at hospitals, studying the overuse of imaging technologies, and focusing on collaboration with various players in the healthcare community. The initiative, titled “How did they do that?” is a joint effort from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, the Brigham and Women’s Center for Surgery and Public Health, the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at Brookings, and Re>Think Health, an initiative of the Fannie E. Rippel Foundation. You can find out more about the initiative and the meeting with the healthcare leaders and regional teams listed above by clicking here.
About the Author: Heather Comak is a Managing Editor at HCPro, Inc., where she is the editor of the monthly publication Briefings on Patient Safety, as well as patient safety-related books, webcasts, and audio conferences. She is also is the Assistant Director of the Association for Healthcare Accreditation Professionals (www.accreditationprofessional.com) and manages Patient Safety Monitor (www.patientsafetymonitor.com), of which this blog is a part.
Contact Heather by e-mailing hcomak@hcpro.com
