Book by Kaiser CEO January 2, 2008
Posted by George Van Antwerp in Books / Articles, Consumerism, Healthcare, Leadership, Managed Care, Marketing / Communications, Research.trackback
George Halvorson, the Chairman and CEO of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, has just published a book called “Health Care Reform Now! A Prescription for Change”. A news clipping service I have sent me a summary from Business Insurance. It is published by John Wiley & Sons and is $27.95. It sounds quite interesting. Here are a few things which the article highlighted.
He says that the US does not have a health care system in place but has a “plethora of uncoordinated, unlinked, economically segregated, operationally limited microsystems…a nonsystem of care.”
He talks about the concentration of spending (based on Kaiser Permanente data):
- 1% of the US population uses more than 35% of health care dollars
- 5% uses 60%
- 10% spends 70%
He talks about the fact that five chronic diseases are responsible for upwards of 70% of the health care costs in the US:
- Asthma
- Diabetes
- Congestive heart failure
- Coronary artery disease
- Depression
He talks about the problems that arise when there is no communication between health care silos of care which leads to drug interactions and costly hospitalizations.
I haven’t read it yet, but the article says that he offers solutions for each problem and talks in a conversational and occasionally funny way. He proposes using insurance records to create a type of Electronic Medical Record rather than waiting for the long-term solution of integrated systems. He also proposes using computerized medical records to track quality issues.
[...] of Kaiser and recently wrote the book Healthcare Reform Now! A Prescription for Change. Some of my notes on this are here although I am still finishing up the [...]
A major discussion of Halvorson’s book:
http://medinnovationblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/systematic-reform-of-us-health-care-one.html
A follow up on that blog entry:
http://medinnovationblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/systematic-reform-of-us-health-care-one.html
Another view of the general problem:
http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2007/12/bad-medicine-ho.html
An inspiring talk of potential improvements:
http://wiki.commerce.net/wiki/Healthcare_3.0_Videos
Richard Karpinski, Nitpicker dick@cfcl.com
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http://www.kaiserthrive.org for more information on kaiser permanente and CEO George Halvorson