Consider a time when a person goes to a Patient Centered Medical Home instead of a hospital. Rather than being treated for a disease, this person manages good health through preventive measures, coached by a team of professionals and specialists working together from all parts of the world. The cost is reasonable, driven by the economics of the American supply and demand system.
This is one of the scenarios predicted by the authors of this groundbreaking new book that will change the way Americans view the maintenance and delivery of health services. They begin by reviewing the history of our health systems, and identifying some of the main problems in our health services today.
Dynamic Flows in Health Care
The authors frequently talk about dynamic flows. Dynamic flows include how we think about our health, how doctors and medical professionals think and act about health, how health care is delivered, and how payment is made for services. They spend time examining a model called Employer Accountable Care Organizations, or EACOs. The EACOs will encourage and assist employees to maintain good health and fitness. Rather than focusing on illness, the new focus will be on maintaining healthy habits by treating the whole person for a lifetime. The authors repeatedly refer to this as a way of making America strong again through a vibrantly healthy workforce.
In addition, David Houle and Jonathan Fleece propose that health care professionals will be paid according to how healthy patients are. Instead of the current system, in which doctors are paid by how many procedures they perform and how many diagnostic tests are ordered, they will be paid to provide high-quality, economically efficient services to keep people healthy.
Change Vision and the Shift Age
Houle and Fleece propose that humanity is no longer in the Information Age, but has now entered the Shift Age. This age is identified by accelerating electronic connectedness, flow to global considerations and flow to individual needs. These forces are reshaping the way humanity thinks and works and socializes, and will continue to do so for the next ten to twenty years. This global shift is moving us into the New Health Age.
With technology, doctors can do miracles for the human body. They can offer services by computer and video over long distances. Medical records can be shared electronically across the health service spectrum so no matter where in the world a person is, his or her records can be retrieved instantly. Doctors from all over the world can collaborate in a person’s care.
Predictions for the Health Care System
The third section of this engaging book offers examples of medical institutions that are already making progress in the new health practices and integrated health systems described. Several essays from well-respected leaders in the fields of medicine and technology round out the authors’ views.
The main messages of the book are that today’s health care system is undergoing an unprecedented transformation, and we must prepare to engage in it. This transformation will return America to the strength and vitality it once enjoyed by building a healthier work force. Modern technology will bring the costs down in medical care while increasing the quality of life and health care. People will have a more active role in their own health, and doctors from vast geographic regions will collaborate to bring high quality care to everyone. In the next ten to twenty years, global connectedness will bring the best medicine has to offer down to the individual level, that of the whole person.
Written in an engaging manner, this thought provoking and eye opening book is for everyone who cares about the health of themselves and their families. It received five star reviews on Amazon.
Source:
- Houle, David and Fleece, Jonathan, The New Health Age, The Future of Health Care in America, published by New Health Age Advisors, 2011
- ISBN: 978-9846561-0-3
Suzanne Pitner - Suzanne Pitner is a teacher and published writer. A member of RWA and YARWA, she writes fiction as Suzanne Lilly.
