Healthcare has a long way to go in rooting out discrepancies and improving transparency in patient care, according to Don Berwick, MD, former administrator of CMS and senior fellow with the Institute of Healthcare Improvement.
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.