January 9, 2013
We Can All Get Along: It’s the Patient, Stupid
My last blog used the infamous Rodney King episode in Los Angeles as the springboard for suggesting that integrating care—physicians, hospitals and patients working together—is essential to achieve the best clinical outcomes for the chronically ill while constraining the runaway costs of healthcare. A recent article in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/opinion/approaching-illness-as-a-team-at-the-cleveland-clinic.html?_r=0) makes it clear that this is not a theoretical concept. Physicians at one of the great healthcare organizations in the country, the Cleveland Clinic, have been forming focused teams that can mobilize to efficiently diagnose and treat a variety of illnesses, including neurological, cardiovascular, oncologic, urologic and nephrologic. Read more…
