Atul Gawande understanding the forces driving healthcare change

• Published in: Healthcare Financial Management Vol. 68; no. 5; pp. 56 - 60
• Main Authors: Gawande, Atul, Daly, Rich
• Format: Journal Article Trade Publication Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Healthcare Financial Management Association 01.05.2014
• Subjects: Company business management; Decision making; Delivery of Health Care - economics; Delivery of Health Care - organization & administration; Forecasts and trends; Gawande, Atul; Health Care Costs; Health care delivery; Health care expenditures; Health care policy; Health Expenditures; Hospitals; Humans; Management; Market trend/market analysis; Medical care; Medical care quality; Medical schools; Palliative care; Patient Participation; Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - economics; Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - legislation & jurisprudence; Patients; Physicians; Policy; Quality management; Quality of care; Single-payer system (Health care); Surgeons; Writing; United States; United States > US
• ISSN: 0735-0732

In an interview, Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital, talked about his views on key ways to deliver high-quality care at lower cost as well as the increased focus on transparency of cost and quality information. He came to this subject from a physician's point of view, with an interest in understanding how they become good at what they do as healthcare providers. They cannot achieve great care at an affordable cost without a new partnership between finance leaders and clinicians in designing care and in changing incentives that yield less-than-ideal systems and care. When Medicare passed, improvements were required within one year, and they have been required every year since. That's going to be the case with the Affordable Care Act. Given that patients are having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for care under many health plans and can't afford some of the choices that physicians are presenting to them, it's hard to know what impact transparency on quality-of-care information might have on consumer decision making.