Some things should never happen in healthcare, like operating on the wrong place or providing the wrong medication or dosage. But such things happen, sadly. In a study of one insurer’s malpractice claims stemming from 68 wrong-site surgery claims between 2013-2020, 46% of patients required a second surgery, 10% experienced mobility dysfunction, and 9% had a worsened injury. Even worse, 15% died or totally lost function, about equally split. These mistakes should never have occurred. Since 2004, The Joint Commission (which accredits US healthcare organizations) has mandated a Universal Protocol for surgery. The protocol requires a pre-incision verification process, the surgeon marking the incision site on the body, and a surgical team time-out immediately before the incision so that any team member can stop the surgery. Yet between 2018 and 2022, The Joint Commission received 525 reports of wrong surgery. It’s a likely…
Why changing healthcare policy is so messy: Part One
The market mechanism is a remarkable process. Buyers and sellers exchange money in an open system that produces prices and production levels to equate supply and demand. (Also known as Keynes’ invisible hand, the market mechanism is an alternative to central planning.) Chinese leaders added the market mechanism to its communist political system, and economic growth skyrocketed. In theory, the market mechanism leads to an ideal allocation of goods, services and workers’ efforts for society. In practice, ideal output misses the mark when prices fail to reflect societal benefits and costs, consumers are not well-informed, or monopolistic-like power exists. One area where the market mechanism often fails is healthcare. A healthy population benefits everyone, from employers in need of a productive workforce to the government (and taxpayers) who cover the costs of the social safety net to each of us as individuals…