Connecting the dots

French post-impressionist George Seurat recognized and understood that chromoluminarism and pointillism could generate beautiful art using dots in the 19th century, a philosophy shared by Roy Lichtenstein, American pop artist and abstract expressionist a century later. As consumers, we can benefit emotionally from what we see.

 

The same could be said – or hoped for – with the topsy-turvy contemporary American healthcare reform movement. So far, few, if any, seem to be connecting the dots in what could be described as conundrumism.

 

Unfortunately, the challenge with federal/national healthcare reform projects to date is that the efforts have been inverted. 

 

Oh, there’s the pretense and pretext on display for PR to promote how it’s all about access, but that’s as genuine as those trite platitudinals, “thank you for your service” and “thoughts and prayers” (especially ironic when offered by agnostics).

 

By inverted, the descriptor refers to efforts that start with the payers and move backward. It’s all about the accountability, paperwork and records designed to make the payer process more efficient for payers, but then their premiums and rates continue to climb with little accountability or even rational justification outside of making insurance company executives and shareholders happy. The challenge lurks somewhere between WaPo investigative reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s “Follow the money,” during their Watergate series in the early 1970s and actor Cuba Gooding Jr.’s famous line as athlete Rod Tidwell in the 1996 film, “Jerry Maguire” when he exclaims, “Show me the money!”

 

This does little for the patient, means more administrative work for the clinician, regardless of automation (including A.I., blockchain, etc.) and even less for supply chain. 

 

Nopity-nope-nope-nope – authentic and meaningful healthcare reform should start with the patient and move forward in terms of behavioral modification (yes, parenting) with appropriate incentives for compliance and penalties for non-compliance. The late corporate icon Steve Jobs was known for emphasizing that product development begins with the customer experience to which you then innovative and apply technology.

 

What have we accomplished so far? With the emphasis on electronic health/medical records usage, healthcare insurance coverage and supply data standards adoption and implementation as well as a host of other concerns, we’re still left with population ennui, clinician burnout and manic decisions/panic reactions to crises. 

 

Time travelers from the 1980s simply shake their heads in disappointment and exasperation – and not just because we don’t have flying cars by now today.

 

What do we need? Following are five suggestions.

All this spans administrative, clinical, financial and operational aspects. Supply Chain, Sterile Processing, Surgical Services, Infection Prevention, Environmental/Facility Services, among others, work together to connect the dots. They investigate and procure what’s needed. They maintain sterile instruments and fields to prevent infection, which reduces the need for inpatient services so that patients are not discharged, and visitors do not leave with bacterial or viral infections that perpetuate a cycle of sickness.

 

Get the point? Work together to change behavior and generate healthy results.