I don’t post on medicine much lately, because my attention has been elsewhere. But this looks too important not to mention: In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published the famous “To Err Is Human” report, … reporting that up to 98,000 people a year die because of mistakes in hospitals. The number was initially disputed, but is now widely accepted by doctors and hospital officials — and quoted ubiquitously in the media. In 2010, the Office of Inspector General for Health and Human Services said that bad hospital care contributed to the deaths of 180,000 patients in Medicare alone in a given year.
My sister rides hard herd on the doctors and staff who treat my parents whenever they go in. They completely consistently forget to order things they discuss with us, and staff completely consistently fails to implement orders on timescales that would seem to be important.
If I had the money and knew about people like my sister, I would pay them to supervise my hospital stay.
I would agree somewhat. Specialists who get paid 2-3 times what pediatricians and general med docs? Why? Specialists even work less hours. They should make maybe a 25-35% premium. Family prac docs should get paid more perhaps? Hospitals have very little sharing of information and then they spend tons on nice lobbies. That all costs money.
Good point. Countries that have less money now have access to quality care. They are providing it to more people than ever (what I observed India for example). If they end up walking more places like I observed in Thailand, they are indirectly getting more exercise than we do as well. Probably less processed food to boot. The fact that we are being passed up by every European country should make us take a closer look.
Isn't it obvious? Don't be very old, sick or heavily injured when you enter the hospital.
Also, pay for additional tests, second opinions and more experienced surgeons and then tell yourself some good bdtime stories to help you sleep at night since you are getting better care at the expense of people with less financial means.
Are there any 'how to survive your trip to the hospital' hints & tips lists being generated based on the results of these latest studies? It would be helpful to know some of the highest benefit/cost measures a prospective patient can take.
"What seems clear is that, assuming the continued expensiveness of medical technologies, as societies get richer they can and should spend an ever-expanding share of their wealth on medical care."
The absolute growth in medical spending should always be less than the absolute GDP growth because that growth cannot be maintained without additional infrastructure, education and ecological footprint reduction. Also, the people have the right to choose how they want to spend GDP growth: they may well decide they'd rather lower the retirement age, make education free or lower taxes instead of increasing healthcare spending, and all scenarios in between.
I have witnessed quite a few. In many institutions keeping the affirmative action professionals from killing people is like a second profession for better trained persons at all levels. Even nurses' aides can tell the difference.
I think U.S. doctors make too much money because there are too few of them (due to rent seeking by the politically organized medical profession).
Whether the result is too much or too little total spending is, I think, probably impossible to say given the extreme inefficiencies, which affect both the harms and benefits in unknown proportion. What seems clear is that, assuming the continued expensiveness of medical technologies, as societies get richer they can and should spend an ever-expanding share of their wealth on medical care.
It's a simple choice, isn't it (societally), between medicine versus mansions or toys?
[Social-democratic European societies seem to underfund medical care, so that the fact that they do better than the U.S. at lower cost doesn't say they do as well as they could if they spent more. Certainly, the reports of waiting lists in the British NHS suggest that NHS is underfunded. I'm sympathetic to Robin's view that people should choose to use less medical care today than they typically do use. But that, as well, is relative to the current inefficiencies. For example, one reason that people should avoid hospitals is data like in the OP, but that data is itself a function of existing inefficiencies.]
"Robin, we know, wants to say that there's too much medical spending; the data could be interpreted to say there's too little."
The truth lies in the middle: America spends too much money on healthcare but it does so very inefficiently and the access to and quality of the care is very unevenly distributed.
Medical industry makes a fortune because of medical errors.
Medical Errors means a trillion for the medical industry
Click Here And See Why Americans Kill More People Than the Nazis
Shocking Medical Error Data Click Here
Doctor Salaries Click Here
Doctors are greedy and dangerous!
My sister rides hard herd on the doctors and staff who treat my parents whenever they go in. They completely consistently forget to order things they discuss with us, and staff completely consistently fails to implement orders on timescales that would seem to be important.
If I had the money and knew about people like my sister, I would pay them to supervise my hospital stay.
I would agree somewhat. Specialists who get paid 2-3 times what pediatricians and general med docs? Why? Specialists even work less hours. They should make maybe a 25-35% premium. Family prac docs should get paid more perhaps? Hospitals have very little sharing of information and then they spend tons on nice lobbies. That all costs money.
Good point. Countries that have less money now have access to quality care. They are providing it to more people than ever (what I observed India for example). If they end up walking more places like I observed in Thailand, they are indirectly getting more exercise than we do as well. Probably less processed food to boot. The fact that we are being passed up by every European country should make us take a closer look.
Isn't it obvious? Don't be very old, sick or heavily injured when you enter the hospital.
Also, pay for additional tests, second opinions and more experienced surgeons and then tell yourself some good bdtime stories to help you sleep at night since you are getting better care at the expense of people with less financial means.
Are there any 'how to survive your trip to the hospital' hints & tips lists being generated based on the results of these latest studies? It would be helpful to know some of the highest benefit/cost measures a prospective patient can take.
"What seems clear is that, assuming the continued expensiveness of medical technologies, as societies get richer they can and should spend an ever-expanding share of their wealth on medical care."
The absolute growth in medical spending should always be less than the absolute GDP growth because that growth cannot be maintained without additional infrastructure, education and ecological footprint reduction. Also, the people have the right to choose how they want to spend GDP growth: they may well decide they'd rather lower the retirement age, make education free or lower taxes instead of increasing healthcare spending, and all scenarios in between.
I don't think so. Do we have numbers for lives saved by medicine?
That same bias can apply to lived saved by medicine, so this is still useful as a way to compare lives saved vs. lost via medicine.
I have witnessed quite a few. In many institutions keeping the affirmative action professionals from killing people is like a second profession for better trained persons at all levels. Even nurses' aides can tell the difference.
Yes, but they aren't sufficient to explain the observed effect.
I think U.S. doctors make too much money because there are too few of them (due to rent seeking by the politically organized medical profession).
Whether the result is too much or too little total spending is, I think, probably impossible to say given the extreme inefficiencies, which affect both the harms and benefits in unknown proportion. What seems clear is that, assuming the continued expensiveness of medical technologies, as societies get richer they can and should spend an ever-expanding share of their wealth on medical care.
It's a simple choice, isn't it (societally), between medicine versus mansions or toys?
[Social-democratic European societies seem to underfund medical care, so that the fact that they do better than the U.S. at lower cost doesn't say they do as well as they could if they spent more. Certainly, the reports of waiting lists in the British NHS suggest that NHS is underfunded. I'm sympathetic to Robin's view that people should choose to use less medical care today than they typically do use. But that, as well, is relative to the current inefficiencies. For example, one reason that people should avoid hospitals is data like in the OP, but that data is itself a function of existing inefficiencies.]
The sampled population are mostly sick/injured and/or old people, many of which are in palliative care.
"Robin, we know, wants to say that there's too much medical spending; the data could be interpreted to say there's too little."
The truth lies in the middle: America spends too much money on healthcare but it does so very inefficiently and the access to and quality of the care is very unevenly distributed.
Stephen Diamond
"Then the patient would have to sue the hospital, which isn't any easier than suing a physician."
And which always has been difficult, tort reform or not...
rrb
New technologies mean cancer patients are treated longer and patients who weren't treated at all because they couldn't be saved are treated today.