The Nashville Tech Story (8/1/09)
Part III – Personal Responsibility
So far, we have covered costs, quality, and value. Now, let’s talk about our personal responsibility.
Ok, is it really my fault? Well yes. a longitudinal study conducted by the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, University of California-Davis, Davis showed that Seniors who were leaner, smoked fewer cigarettes over a lifetime, reduced their smoking, or walked farther had significant subsequent cost savings compared to those with less-healthy lifestyle-related habits. If you extrapolate the cost savings per person over their life of $1548 X 300mil population. It is $440 billion over the next 77.7 years (avg. life expectancy) or $5 billion a year.
Medicare could save money and improve health care quality by providing financial incentives to providers for coordinating patient care through a shared savings program, according to a new paper from the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution.
At the end of the day, it is up to everyone involved in healthcare (you, business owners, insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals, physicians, nurses, and clinicians) to work together to innovate the current system. There is a solution, we just haven’t found it, or agreed to what it is.
Another responsibility that we have is to get engaged with the conversation.
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