In my capacity as benefits consultant, I often hear employees say they know we have the most expensive system in the world, but they feel that is a fair trade-off because we have the U.S. healthcare system is the best in the world.
Well, let me disavow you of that notion. Every metric measurable shows that we have a mediocre system, at best! The World Health Organization ranks the U.S. healthcare system as 37th in the world, strictly based on outcomes. That puts us tied with Slovenia but significantly behind Costa Rica, Saudi Arabia, Colombia and the bankrupt country of Greece.
Part of the reason for the poor results, I believe, is because we don't ask hard questions on the quality of care we receive (and likely wouldn't get answers, if we did). Does anyone know the readmission rate or infection rate of the hospital they are about to have a surgical procedure in?
Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics fame asked the following question: There are two major cardiology conferences each year, where more than 7,000 of the top cardiologists and thoracic surgeons go for one to two weeks each; what happens to the quality of care in their facilities while they are gone?
I tried to imagine: Would I want to even go to the hospital knowing the top doctors were away?
To get to the answer on quality of care, Dubner used 10 years of data from Medicare looking at more than 10,000 patients with emergency types of heart conditions (like heart attacks) so that patient choice of facility is largely removed as a variable. The baseline for the comparison against the work of these top doctors was data from teaching hospitals, even though conventional wisdom says, "Take me to the facility with the top doctors and keep me away from a teaching hospital. I don't want any residents cutting their teeth on me!"
The answer: If you were brought to a teaching hospital for a heart attack, your mortality rate was about 15%. Mortality rate at a non-teaching hospital, with those top doctors, the week before or week after the convention was 25%! This is a HUGE swing! This means that, for every 100 heart attacks brought in, 10 more people die when the top doctors are around!
Let me put this in perspective. If you look at all treatments given for a heart attack, like beta blockers, Plavix, stents, angioplasty, aspirin....all these COMBINED reduce mortality by 2% to 3%!
Here is another interesting point. The amount of invasive treatments, like angioplasty and stents, are used in about 33% FEWER cases when the cardiologists are away.
Okay, so wait a second. Did I just say that better care is given when the top doctors are away, and, at the same time, less severe treatments are being administered and fewer dollars are being spent?
That sounds pretty counter-intuitive. Let me give my take on why.
When I think of a “top” cardiologist, an image comes to mind. He has lots of gray hair (not sure why my mind imagines a male, but it does), and has been doing cardiac surgery for decades. Does this sound about right?
Well, this doctor was trained in medical techniques 30 or 40 years ago, and he has likely been sued for malpractice, perhaps multiple times (which leads to "defensive" medicine). He frequently has ownership or at least compensation tied to the profitability of the facility where he practices. These traits lead to more care and often inappropriate (or unnecessary) care. The younger doctors, meanwhile, are less jaded by malpractice, less engaged in profits and more recently trained.
I ask you to question EVERYTHING when it relates to care. Assume nothing. One thing is clear; the more involved the patient is in her own care, the better the outcomes (and the lower the costs, too)!
