Experts, anger, and the madness of crowds

We find ourselves in a most peculiar historical moment. Among other things--many other things--problems of health care policy, research, and clinical practice more and more resemble those of society at large. There ' s a general sense everywhere that, whatever the outfit, the Wrong Guy is in charge of it. Then like a snake eating its tail, we argue endlessly about the details.It ' s enough to give one a migraine, bigly. Whether we ' re talking DC, the Oscars, or (OMG) yet another health care reorg: if only we could get rid of the Gang That Couldn ' t Shoot Straight. But replace [fill in the blank] ... with what?Let ' s look at a couple of recent Anglo-American pieces--hereandhere--and try to understand this odd moment in time.In a recent number of The Guardian,an editorialist links the recent Oscars fiasco to what we here at HCRenewal, along with many others have come to callmanagerialism. The reliance on, indeed the cult of well paid and generic consultancy over real expertise seems now to have metastasized throughout our society. Why should we be surprised if this blight turns out to ' ve insinuated itself into every nook and cranny of our medical organizations?The hallmarks are the same everywhere. Bigness. The notion that generic managers know best. If you have a problem, do what you need to do. Bring in an outside hired-gun pseudo-expert and then keep your job. (Of course, occasionally the behavior is so laughably clumsy that some shmoe, like the...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Management Source Type: blogs