Dr. Pearl will give a keynote presentation “Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors & Patients” based on his new book at Becker’s Hospital Review 11th Annual Meeting. All profits from the book will go to Doctors Without Borders. As part of an ongoing series, Becker’s is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place virtually from May 10-27th.
To learn more about the conference and Dr. Pearl’s session, click here.
Question: Share one change brought on by the coronavirus pandemic that you’d like to see stick, especially in healthcare?
Robert Pearl: Telemedicine (virtual care or telehealth) has been around for decades. Yet, until physicians faced a viral pandemic that forced them to close their offices, less than 1% of doctor-patient meetings took place virtually. As the pandemic spiked in summer 2020, that number ballooned to 69%. As the deadly virus spread, video allowed physicians to deliver outstanding healthcare without the risk of being in the same room as (and potentially infecting) their patients.
When coordinated and delivered by groups of physicians, video-based telehealth grants patients access to care 24/7, without delay and without overwhelming individual doctors. This pandemic has opened the eyes of physicians and patients alike, helping them recognize how often telemedicine is more convenient, more affordable and more capable of high-quality outcomes than a single physician seeing patients in an office.
Q: What is one essential trait leaders need to lead effectively in healthcare today?
RP: The first steps toward solving a problem are admitting one exists and taking the actions needed to address it. This takes courage, an essential trait for successful leadership.
Medicine faces two critical problems. First, the current healthcare system functions like a nineteenth-century cottage industry—with doctors working alone, disconnected from their peers, receiving piecemeal payments and using outdated technologies. These problems are well known to most leaders, but little has improved.
That is because the second critical problem in medicine has long been overlooked. Leaders must recognize and acknowledge the impact that physician culture has on the declining health and satisfaction of both patients and doctors. Physicians are trained to save a life at any cost, to always put the patient’s needs first, and to provide medical care equally to all. Most physicians are certain they do. Time and again, data prove otherwise. Meaningful change will begin when leaders are willing to confront the role physician culture plays in making U.S. healthcare the most expensive and least effective system in the developed world.
Q: What would you like to see as the defining theme of 2021 for your industry?
RP: The transformation of American medicine can begin in 2021. And it can begin because of (not despite) our nation’s unprecedented economic challenges. Last year, the coronavirus pandemic brought the world economy to its knees. Today, nearly half of all small businesses fear closing by the second half of 2021. States across the U.S. face a potential $56 billion budget hole. Meanwhile, the nation’s debt is set to exceed the size of the economy for the first time since WWII.
Now that businesses, taxpayers, and the government can’t afford to pay more for healthcare, decades of calling for industrywide transformation will be answered, not by choice but by necessity. Our nation will only have two choices. The U.S. can lower healthcare costs by providing less coverage, rationing medical care, and trying to ignore the resulting health consequences. Or our country can evolve the healthcare system and with it the physician culture, adopting a more efficient and effective model for care delivery. The once-popular option of doing nothing no longer exists.
Stephen Klasko, President and Chief Executive Officer at Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health
At Becker's 4th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, taking place November 2–5 in Chicago, more than 1,500 hospital and health system executives tackle decisions that determine whether organizations thrive or merely survive: protecting margins under cost pressure, choosing where to grow, renegotiating payer relationships, stabilizing the workforce and proving real ROI on technology. This is where leaders work through them together, face-to-face. Apply for complimentary registration now.
