#3 Article from Harvard Business Review

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For this blog post I thought it would be good to focus on a similar topic as my second blog which focused on making health care a team sport. I found an article from Harvard Business Review titled, The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care. They initially state that to fix any problem you need to define the goal. I agree with this, not just with health care but in any type of organization. I have found myself trying to solve personal problems within school, sports, and social life, and in each area I always come to the step of finding out what I want my end outcome to be, and to do that I have to define the goal I want to achieve. This article says, “In health care, the overarching goal for providers, as well as for every other stakeholder, must be improving value for patients, where value is defined as the health outcomes achieved that matter to patients relative to the cost of achieving those outcomes.” I understand this goal can be very challenging as health care in itself is very expensive no matter where you go. While that is true, this can be changed if everyone follows suit. We need to find the route of the problems to start tackling this goal. Harvard suggests that current payment structures have reinforced this problem and conclude to a system with high costs and unbalanced quality.

Thankfully this is changing because of Medicare and Medicaid. These reimburse health care facilities at a smaller fraction compared to private insurance plans. Because of this, it forces providers to need a new strategy that reduces costs and create a new payment model. For management roles, it is up to us to find a strategy that makes physicians and clients happy. It is hard for anyone to accept change especially when it comes to individual businesses. I want to help create a strong value for patients within a facility that is open to patients of all financial statuses. I don’t want to overstep physicians and force anyone to follow a system they don’t agree with. I find it necessary to create a plan that meets Harvard’s goal, and ask everyone their views on the matter. After this, a plan should be made from all roles in the care center. I truly believe everyone has something different to offer to the table from their own personal lives.
Here is the link to the article:
https://hbr.org/2013/10/the-strategy-that-will-fix-health-care

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 29, 2017 at 6:47 AM

    Hi Molly, sorry for my delay in response, I was on vacation last week! Interesting post. I think something to consider when looking at the amount of cost is transparency. I recently was working on a project in my position where we were look at reports of what physicians know. A lot of physicians are not aware by administration how much something costs. Especially in an age of defensive medicine I think relaying to clinical staff what the monetary cost is to weigh the benefits would be important to consider when wanting to cut costs.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mark BonicaSeptember 29, 2017 at 2:05 PM

    You get what you pay for. We can affect what is delivered in healthcare through the compensation mechanisms. I like your passion.

    ReplyDelete

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