The core message the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value has been delivering since our inception is that all of our efforts in delivering health and care to the customer should be focused on what is valued by that customer, our patient. Dr. Milstein's article sheds light on the reluctance of many providers in the U.S. to embrace this philosophy. If everyone did embrace it we wouldn't even have the discussion about whether "never events", which include such life threatening defects as leaving a surgical instrument in the abdomen or inpatient falls that lead to fractures, should be paid for or not.
If we really were focused as an industry on value we would make sure none of these events occur ever. These kind of defects are what drives the quality down and the cost up. The question is how could we have strayed so far from our primary mission to deliver a defect free service to our patients? The processes we are using to deliver care were developed 50 years ago. We can have the greatest technology on earth (which we do) but if the process is designed in a way that defects or quality problems can still occur then not even the greatest technology can help. Let's get back to the basics and fix what's broken. Please visit our new website in partnership with the Lean Enterprise Institute www.healthcarevalueleaders.org. Our organizations together with you will attack these defects and fix American healthcare.
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