August 15, 2013
Dr. Michael Painter and his wife Mary each lost a parent. In his wife’s case, her mom died peacefully at home. But Painter’s dad experienced something far more traumatic. He received an early morning call from paramedics regarding his otherwise healthy and vigorous 72-year-old. His dad had fallen at home. Because the responders on the scene presumed a stroke, he was taken to a hospital with a neurosurgery speciality rather than one with a trauma center.
This decision proved fatal.
August 14, 2013
François de Brantes is the Executive Director of the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (HCI3), and a staunch advocate of incorporating new motivations within healthcare.
According to Brantes, motivation fuels any professional, with morals and ethics steering the ship so to speak. As people, our motivation is to achieve certain goals. And as doctors, we’re guided by at least two primary goals–stay in business and take care of patients. Thanks to falling Medicare payments and rising cost of overhead, though, the staying in business part has taken precedence, and led to primary care physicians bringing on more and more patients. In turn this compromises the more satisfying, and important, concern–making patients healthier. Ideally, if health care professionals were free to realize that second motivation, we’d have a situation where really good care is readily available, and affordable. But that’s not the situation. And it’s clear that something’s gone wrong.