Dr. Berwick discussed his beliefs concerning the next era of healthcare in an IHI keynote speech covered by Hospitals & Health Networks.
Dr. Berwick offered healthcare leaders nine steps they can take to begin moving into a more patient-focused era of healthcare:
- Stop excessive measurement. Healthcare must tame the current clamor for more metrics and more data lest providers lose sight of the individual patient.
- Abandon complex incentives. Healthcare needs a moratorium on complex incentive programs for individual healthcare workers that incite more confusion than momentum.
- Decrease focus on finance. If leaders really did care about profit, they would concentrate unremittingly on meeting the needs of people who came to them for help.
- Avoid professional prerogative at the expense of the whole. Clinicians, physicians and nurses should reject any sense of inherited privilege that comes with their job title, re-emphasizing the role of servitude for healthcare professionals.
- Recommit to improvement science. Healthcare systems should not just know about improvement methods, but use them.
- Embrace transparency. Healthcare professionals should improve communication and information sharing strategies with the communities they serve.
- Protect civility. As the healthcare industry experiences volatility and transition, healthcare leaders must maintain the dignity and compassion of their roles.
- Listen. Really listen. Patient-centered care means understanding and serving the needs of the poor, the disadvantaged and the excluded in healthcare.
- Reject greed. All tolerance of financial or professional greed should be eliminated in healthcare systems.
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