Service Innovation

?Shift the business models? ?Re-align the incentives? ?Fee-for-value? These phrases are not new. Nor are the concepts they represent. Yet we?re starting to see new experiments from the federal government, from states, and even small communities that demonstrate a new willingness to deeply engage in understanding and overcoming the barriers to true change in how we improve health. Notice that I said ?improve health.?? I didn?t say ?Improve health care.?? This not just an insignificant semantic nuance.? When we conflate care and health, we accept the fundamentally flawed assumption that in order for people to be healthy, we must in some way intervene and care for them. This assumption forms the basis of many traditions that pervade our broken system: in medical school and residency, I was taught that the individual with depression needs a medication, rather than improved coping skills.? I was taught that the individual with diabetes needs a nutritionist rather than an exercise partner.? I was taught that the the individual with hypertension or hyperlipidemia needed medications, regular lab work, and bi-annual follow-up visits, and I was taught that otherwise healthy adults needed an annual physical exam. We now know that this medical education I received – as have tens of thousands of physicians, nurses, care coordinators, quality managers, hospital and health plan administrators and government officials – is in many cases based on a set of traditions rather than sc...
Source: Docnotes - Category: Primary Care Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Value Source Type: blogs