Our health care system is notoriously inefficient. Spending is too high, while quality is too low. Some patients undergo expensive treatments that provide little or no benefit. At the same time, other patients don’t receive some inexpensive treatments that could materially improve their health.
When I was CFO of a medical software start-up back in 2000, we diagnosed this problem quite simply: actual medical practice falls far short of best practices. Good treatment regimes are often well-known, yet are overlooked by a large fraction of practicing physicians. (The classic example at the time was that doctors were substantially under-prescribing beta blockers, which can help many patients after a heart attack; I would welcome comments about whether that’s still true.)
The implied treatment for our health care system is also simple: find ways to get patients, physicians, and other providers to adopt best practices. We were focused on information technology as one potential way to do this, but many others have also gotten attention, including:
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