It’s hard to see beyond the catchy headlines, and understand where the 18% of GDP that we also call healthcare is spent. Luckily NPR has put together these two simple graphs that illustrate where the money is going and where it’s coming from.
It’s the holiday season! When you’re traveling, it’s important not to forget about your family’s health in the midst of all the packing and planning. Nothing can ruin a holiday expedition faster than a poorly-timed bout with sickness – and the cold weather and travel that come along with the season significantly increase the risk of someone in the family coming down with something.
Luckily, there are several easy things you can do to help your family stay healthy during these extra-special holiday vacations:
That’s it! Just follow these five simple steps, and you’ll be certain to have a happy and healthy holiday season!
Know Where and How to Find a Doctor When Your Family and Friends Start Asking
During the holidays people start searching more health information online. Your mother asks you if you’ve seen a doctor because of your back pain or you think your parents should see an optometrist. At the same time your friends ask you which dentist you see and if you could share the practice information.
BetterDoctor is a free of charge consumer service for you and your family to find a better doctor near you.
Select doctor specialty, pick your insurance plan and you’ll get a list of verified doctors near you. Find a doctor who accepts your insurance via BetterDoctor Web App or BetterDoctor App on Facebook App Center.
We all know that it’s painfully hard to find a new doctor, but you might wonder how long it normally takes to see a doctor. Here’s a look at average wait times in days at major metropolitan areas across the country:
The map above shows the average appointment wait times (in days) for five medical
specialties: cardiology, dermatology, OB/GYN, orthopedic surgery, and family practice.
Bad as this looks, it gets even worse. The physician-to-population ratios in these
metropolitan areas are traditionally some of the highest in the country. If it takes weeks to see a doctor in these areas, the problem can be expected to be worse in areas with fewer physicians per capita.
BetterDoctor’s mission is to fix this problem!
Image: Teladoc
Data: 2009 Survey of Physician Appointment Wait Times, Merritt Hawkins & Associates
Dr. Marty Makary wrote an interesting article on WSJ titled “How to Stop Hospitals From Killing Us“. He offered 5 simple ways to make health care safer and more transparent.
1. Hospital Online Dashboards
There is still little visibility on care outcome on hospital or doctor level. Dr. Makary believes that consumers should have access to a full hospital dashboard with hard and comparable performance metrics. Some of the recommended data points include annual volume by surgery type, patient satisfaction scores, rates of infections, readmission and errors.
As an informal exercise throughout my career, I’ve asked patients how they decided to come to the hospital where I was working. Among their answers: “Because you’re close to home”; “You guys treated my dad when he died”; “I figured it must be good because you have a helicopter.” You wouldn’t believe the number of patients who have told me that the deciding factor for them was parking.
2. Better teamwork in care teams
Hospital work environments can be hierarchical and sometimes nurse practitioner or interns have no confidence to stop an error even if they noticed it beforehand. Studies show that hospitals with best teamwork scores offer better care.
3. Oversight by cameras
Dr. Makary offers a simple yet powerful method to enforce best practices by mounting cameras in operation rooms. This has been proven to dramatically increase the quality of care.
4. Open Notes
Most of information is lost during the doctor’s appointment because the patient tends to be sick and scared, and often has little understanding of the condition. Dr. Makary suggest that doctors should dictate the medical record while patient listens so the patient can correct possible errors. It would be even better if doctor could share the medical records with patient and the patient could update and modify the record online.
5. No more gagging
Transparency is improving and more data is coming public. Yet there is still a halo of secrecy and fear of legal actions against a whistleblowers. Some hospitals make patients sign a gag-order promising never to say anything negative about the doctor or hospital.
Transparency can also help to restore the public’s trust. Many Americans feel that medicine has become an increasingly secretive, even arrogant, industry. With more transparency—and the accountability that it brings—we can address the cost crisis, deliver safer care and improve how we are seen by the communities we serve. To do no harm going forward, we must be able to learn from the harm we have already done.
This great infographic is made by Oxyme.
Our CEO Ari Tulla was interviewed at Health 2.0 conference in Boston.
