Healthcare, Uncertainty, and Thinking
The healthcare system is fascinating because it will touch EVERYONE at one time or another. You may work in the system, or supply the system, or use the system – but it will touch you, one way or another, over the course of your life. I have friends who never fly and, therefore, don’t care about the airline industry. I have friends without cars who don’t care about the car industry. But I don’t have any friends who have never been sick or never needed medical help. Healthcare is one of a few systems that touch all of us. So we had better think about its future.
Many people have written about healthcare as a “broken system.” I think of it as a rapidly evolving system that that is affected by a lot of strong forces, from technology to demographics to political posturing. In other words, the future of our healthcare system is uncertain.
How did we get here? Well, the system that serves us today is the result of the predominant targets of the healthcare system in the past. Consider the role of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals as they responded to the following:
- 1850 to 1900: Epidemics are prevalent. Food, water, sanitation and other aspects of city life cause health problems for masses of people.
- 1900 to World War I: Individual trauma (wounds) and infections are the focus
- World War I to World War II: tuberculosis, malaria, pneumonia, venereal disease and industrial hygiene are big issues to be resolved in the United States.
- World War II to 1980: We are living the “good life” and heart disease, cancer, and strokes are on the rise.
- 1980 to Present: Chronic diseases, emotional and behavioral conditions, terror, war, and genetic inheritances come to the fore.
Now think about the next age of healthcare and consider the forces that will hit the system in the coming years: more and more people are uninsured or underinsured at exactly the same time as families have become smaller and more dispersed. The massive Boomer generation is aging. There are fewer people moving into healthcare. More and more healthcare has become a “for profit” business. The bottom line is that the system and its participants will be stressed in ways we have never precisely encountered before.
That said, this system has evolved in the past and is not a stranger to new ways.
The overriding challenge is for people affected by the system to think about its future and take appropriate actions. Doctor, administrator, nurse, patient, taxpayer – ALL have a stake in the future of this sytem.
The future of the healthcare system
Esteemed doctors, academics, economists, and consultants have written a great deal about their view of and prescription for healthcare and healthcare providers. However, much of it is built on a particular point of view and, when taken in total, a contradictory picture arises. Some see the future of healthcare providers operating in the context of a “consumer- driven” system. Some see the future of providers in the context of information-empowered “personalized medicine.” And others see the entire industry changing as we move (in their view) to a single-payer system. GE Healthcare sees a fundamental shift in the nature of the healthcare provider as the system moves from “late disease” to “early health.” Because all of these points view are about the future, all we know for sure is that no one is right and no one is wrong – yet. We are uncertain.
Healthcare is filled with smart and well-educated people. And that single fact is a cause for hope and concern as we face the future of this vital industry. Because we have so many smart people, we hope that we will be able to “figure it out” as the system changes. However, because we have so many well-educated people, we may be trapped into the viewing the evolving system through mental models that may no longer be appropriate.
As you reflect on the position you want to take in the current “debate” about the future of a system that affects all of us, I suggest that you might want to consider one or more of five ways of thinking.
- Think about the speed of industry evolution. Our hospitals and providers have to keep up with the speed of evolution (on a global basis) or risk becoming irrelevant.
- Think about the larger system. Our hospitals are part of a larger system and the answer to the question “Why is my hospital changing?” is always found in the larger systems of healthcare and economy.
- If you work in healthcare, think about your business model. Whether you are a solo practitioner or a team leader or the CEO of a hospital you have customers and they will the ultimate arbiters of your value.
- Think critically. The world is loaded with people who have opinions. Are your opinions well founded on accepted principals of good thinking? Or, heaven forbid, are you simply repeating someone else’s opinions as “fact.”
- Think across time. The past can inform actions we take in the present. All present day decisions have a “futurity,” both good and bad. And thinking about the future forms the visions we create for our organizations today.
When you think about OUR healthcare system do you throw your hands up in the air and say it’s too confusing? Don’t – your health depends on it.
Date: August 28th, 2009 @ 09:40
Categories: Prepared Mind, uncertainty
