August 11, 2010 ·
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Industry Insights from Paul Meade, M. Sc, MPH
Quality measures in healthcare have been sadly lacking for many years, despite the recognition that this information was needed to optimize healthcare delivery. Information technology is the key driver to obtaining quality measures. Advances in outcomes research, access to claims information, greater data processing capabilities, integration of information systems, implementation of electronic medical records, and accurate and meaningful quality measures will lead to vast improvements in the delivery of optimal healthcare. But who cares?
It is likely that quality measures will lead to the greatest improvements in healthcare, and ultimately drive costs down. And this makes us all winners! When all healthcare providers are accountable not only for the care they offer, but also for the quality of that care, then the economics of the system will improve to generate the greatest value. As the saying goes, “The most expensive treatment is the one that doesn’t work.” Quality measures have a way of weeding out the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of a system. And who doesn’t want the most effective healthcare at the least cost!
One potential unintended consequence of improving outcomes and quality measures is the temptation to ration healthcare delivery. Remember, quality is a function of cost verses benefit to derive maximum value. So going too far down the path of quality could ... read more »
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electronic medical records health care providers health outcomes research healthcare healthcare costs healthcare delivery information systems information technology Paul Meade quality measures
July 6, 2010 ·
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Industry Insights from Paul Meade, M. Sc, MPH
One word that optimally summarizes long-term care in the United States is fragmentation. Like a microcosm of the overall fragmented healthcare system in the U.S., long-term care suffers from similarly fragmented clinical care, living care, and financing. As the population ages and Baby Boomers retire and take on a host of chronic illnesses, the problems of long-term care need to be solved fairly quickly. And who better to fix the long-term care fragmentation than the “screenagers?” What’s a screenager? Read on.
While the Baby Boomers did not create a fragmented healthcare delivery system, they certainly contributed to its broader and deeper fragmentation. They are a generation that demands instant gratification, has high expectations, and suffers from an entitlement mentality. As children of the Depression generation, they were given everything their parents were denied growing up; thus, they began to expect more. Baby Boomers will not tolerate growing old and not having the best of everything–which, for this discussion, includes long-term care. While the Baby Boomers are too impatient to wait for the fragmentation of the long-term care system to integrate itself, they are certainly too busy to do it themselves.
So, who will come to their rescue? Appropriately, the saviors of the Baby Boomers are the generations that follow them– Generations X and Y–or, as ... read more »
TAGS: Baby Boomers chronic illness electronic medical records EMR fragmentation Generation X Generation Y healthcare healthcare delivery healthcare integration iPads iPods long-term care patients personal computers personal health records PHR physician-patient relationship physicians public health retirement screenagers smartphones technology US healthcare system
