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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 upgraded technology becomes available.
The electronic health record is a case in point. Despite years of work and billions spent, we are essentially still in an early generation of the EHR. It will be years and many more billions before the EHR begins to bring the true value of improved care with increased quality, better safety and reduced costs while improving provider productivity.
America does not have a healthcare system; we have a “disease industry.” We focus on disease and pestilence and do a good job of caring for those with acute illnesses and trauma. But we certainly do not address health well and we are not good at caring for chronic illnesses – which are rapidly overtaking acute illnesses as most common and already they consume the bulk of our healthcare dollars.
At some point we must break from our current disease care model and shift to a health promotion and disease prevention model. Until that occurs, the cost of medical care will continue its rapid rise. As a disease industry, the incentives are all based on doing more and more but there is little or no incentive to work on prevention.
Although it is tempting to blame the current problem on the insurers, the device manufacturers, the drug companies or the providers, the truth rests more in the way we have set up our payment systems for care. Insurers pay for doing “something.” This leads to more and more diagnostic and treatment efforts and it encourages the manufacturers to constantly find new approaches. Not bad in and of it self but the incentive is not there to prevent illness and not there to coordinate the care of those with chronic illness. And without this shift in incentives, the cost of care will just keep rising.
Two good steps for the future would be:
Change the Medicare payment code to encourage prevention, coordination, and primary care. With Medicare taking the lead, commercial insurance would likely follow.
Let everyone have a high deductible policy so that each of us will have a real interest in asking about our care and being sure that each and every recommendation for a test, a procedure or a prescription is really the best and really necessary.
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Praise for Dr Schimpff
The craft of science writing requires skills that are arguably the most underestimated and misunderstood in the media world. Dumbing down all too often gets mistaken for clarity. Showmanship frequently masks a poor presentation of scientific issues. Factoids are paraded in lieu of ideas. Answers are marketed at the expense of searching questions. By contrast, Steve Schimpff provides a fine combination of enlightenment and reading satisfaction. As a medical scientist he brings his readers encyclopedic knowledge of his subject. As a teacher and as a medical ambassador to other disciplines he's learned how to explain medical breakthroughs without unnecessary jargon. As an advisor to policymakers he's acquired the knack of cutting directly to the practical effects, showing how advances in medical science affect the big lifestyle and economic questions that concern us all. But Schimpff's greatest strength as a writer is that he's a physician through and through, caring above all for the person. His engaging conversational style, insights and fascinating treasury of cutting-edge information leave both lay readers and medical professionals turning his pages. In his hands the impact of new medical technologies and discoveries becomes an engrossing story about what lies ahead for us in the 21st century: as healthy people, as patients of all ages, as children, as parents, as taxpayers, as both consumers and providers of health services. There can be few greater stories than the adventure of what awaits our minds, bodies, budgets, lifespans and societies as new technologies change our world. Schimpff tells it with passion, vision, sweep, intelligence and an urgency that none of us can ignore.
-- N.J. Slabbert, science writer, co-author of Innovation, The Key to Prosperity: Technology & America's Role in the 21st Century Global Economy (with Aris Melissaratos, director of technology enterprise at the John Hopkins University).
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