WIHI - A Podcast from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Health & Fitness:Medicine
Date: February 9, 2012
Featuring:
Imagine this. You’re driving or walking or maybe even bicycling by your local hospital and you notice a big sign over the entrance that you’ve never seen before. Here’s what it says: “This hospital saved 5 Million Dollars in 2011 by improving patient care and reducing unnecessary procedures. We have returned the money to local employers, local unions, and the state.”
Sound preposterous? Hopefully not, because this is the kind of bold commitment and public declaration that Don Berwick and Gerry Shea would like everyone in health care to start thinking about, seriously. It’s just that urgent, they say, and they’ll explain why.
WIHI host Madge Kaplan welcomes Berwick and Shea to the program, fresh off Dr. Berwick’s 18 months implementing change at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and building on Gerry Shea’s extensive knowledge of quality improvement and the promise of better care and lower health care costs for working Americans.
The problem is, we’re nowhere near there yet, especially where costs are concerned, and both Berwick and Shea believe one of the reasons is that there’s still too much of a disconnect between what better use of health care services and improvement initiatives can achieve, and what health care payers (Medicare and Medicaid, employers, individuals, etc.) are able to reap in return. As Berwick puts it, “Payers aren’t seeing it yet,” and this means that anyone footing the bill, and that’s pretty much all of us, continues to be squeezed in ways that society can’t afford.
So, what can dedicated legions of health professionals, already deeply immersed in improvement work, do differently or better? Berwick started to lay this out on December 7, 2011, at IHI’s National Forum. Berwick and Shea both say that one area ripe for review is the conceptual and often actual way in which health care organizations separate their quality and “lean” strategies, when these should be one and the same. Implementing greater efficiencies has everything to do with safety and better care, the two say. Getting this right would speed things up and generate greater savings. The question then becomes, where should the money go?
WIHI: Harnessing Improvement to Reduce Diagnostic Errors and Delays
WIHI: Medicare Reimbursement and Meaningful Conversations about End-of-Life Care
WIHI: Accelerating Improvement: The Enduring Value of Collaboratives
WIHI: How Health Care Organizations Can Create Equity in the Community
WIHI: Relationships Count: Community Health Workers and Team-Based Care
WIHI: Getting Right Care, Right!
WIHI: What Students in the Health Professions Can Do for You... and Improvement
WIHI: Saving Lives by Design: Lessons for All from Ghana's Project Fives Alive!
WIHI: The Echo Effect of Project ECHO's Access to Specialty Care
WIHI: The IHI Triple Aim: Lessons from the First Seven Years
WIHI: Disability Competent Care
WIHI: Now What? Best Practices for Newly Diagnosed Cancer Patients
WIHI: Leaning In: Oregon's Coordinated Care Organizations
WIHI: Reducing Risks and Defects with Help from the Front Lines
WIHI: All Hands on Deck to Reduce C. Difficile
WIHI: The Managers and Management We Need to Improve Care
WIHI: Bundles and Buy-In for Value-Based Care
WIHI: Topping the Charts in Pediatrics and Adverse Events Reporting
WIHI: The Ups and Downs of Health Care Costs and Reform
WIHI: When Everyone Knows Your Name: Identifying Patients with Complex Needs
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Good Mood Revolution
The Relaxback UK Show
On Call With Dr. Anselm Anyoha
Precision Medicine Forum Podcast
The Doctor’s Farmacy with Mark Hyman, M.D.
The Peter Attia Drive