Medicine: Cottage Industry or Post-Industrial Care Process?
January 21, 2010
In the New England Journal of Medicine this week there is a health care reform piece titled, “Cottage Industry to Postindustrial Care — The Revolution in Health Care Delivery.” The article, by leaders in health care quality, raises significant questions about the problems in health care delivery and a path to a solution through “standardization of value-generating processes, performance measurement, and transparent reporting of quality.”
The authors address concerns about “cookbook medicine” but rightly describe medicine as a cottage industry: “Services are often highly variable, performance is largely unmeasured, care is customized to individual patients, and standardized processes are regarded skeptically. Autonomy is hardwired into the system, because most physicians practice in small groups with limited oversight or coordination.”
How do we move to post-industrial care or even better, 21st century, technology-enabled, patient-focused care. Does that mean that small practices should join large practices, academic medical centers? The authors don’t propose that solution, but do propose following clinical practice guidelines which are flexible enough to manage individual differences in presentation. If medicine is trending toward broad implementation of clinical practice guidelines and a stronger focus on outcomes (value-based medicine), technology-centered particularly around the electronic medical record and a focus on efficiency, can small practices survive? Are will moving toward industry consolidation much like what has been experienced in banking?
The cottage industry of medicine with fee-for-service as a funding model, continues to drive up cost without adding value. While I am no economist, I believe medicine is changing and models of practice which focus on efficiency, technology and patient experience are taking the lead.
One final quote from the article: the authors characterize this cottage industry as chaos – “Chaos confounds constructive action, whereas wise standardization is a foundation for effective variation, efficiency, reliability, and rapid innovation.” Let’s hope that wise standardization through guidelines can promote the kind of rapid innovation needed to transform healthcare and that policy and funding decisions follow this direction.
Share this:
Darf…couldn’t agree more. The insurance companies have complete control and no interest in the “health” of Americans. Transparency, data, and actionable information will drive the cost of healthcare down. By putting the control back in the hands of the entity paying the bills will make that organization more responsible with it’s spending. There are few fantastic companies assisting businesses in REDUCING their healthcare spend…..www.WELLNET.com and Healtcare Interactive
Health care is a market for companies that have deep pockets and short arms.