Wednesday, December 23, 2009

THE BUSINESS OF MEDICINE

Doctors have always focused on the treatment necessary to cure your medical illness.  Today's healthcare reforms require that doctors change their mindsets and become businessmen in the practice of medicine. Universities have responded to this business challenge to make doctors business men!


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THE BUSINESS OF MEDICINE
Doctors have always focused on the treatment necessary to cure your medical illness.  Today's healthcare reforms require that doctors change their mindsets and become businessmen in the practice of medicine. Universities have responded to this business challenge.
To implement changes in their workplace, doctors are now asked to evaluate their annual performance in reducing medical costs to the government.  This shows a focus and grip with the fact that medicine is now very similar to other businesses and medicine must act as a business.
Since performance data has been recently easy to gather, because of advances in information systems and technologies, we are told to recognize a medical knowledge gap. 
Now that doctors have access to details like how many patients get bed sores, or how many patients get infections in hospitals on a given day, they must analyze this data. In an attempt to figure out how to use these statistics to lower medical costs, doctors are turning to business schools for the answers. 
MANAGING YOUR MEDICAL CARE
To cope with the fast pace of modern Obama healthcare, doctors are now signing on for some business school training.   Hospital administrators, private practice managers, and nurses are also looking for guidance on how to analyze all the data accessible to them now in an attempt to improve the quality of care and lower the medical costs that government demands.
Schools are responding with business management programs for the medical community.  Harvard is now offering programs costing $22,000 for three one-week courses over a nine-month period.
As part of the Cancer Institute’s attempt to optimize patient care, Harvard has instituted business programs that will involve day-to-day strategic planning and management to change the practice of medicine.
To teach students to analyze data, Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business is offering master degree programs for people who are employees of the university's health system. The curriculum includes information on how to examine performance data that show where mistakes could have been avoided through better management. Pilot programs are being developed which include a new discharge timeout process requiring doctors to meet you before you are released.  On discharge, a team will teach you to medically care for your incision, so the chance so of a surgical site infection can be lowered.
Pennsylvania University’s Business school budget has doubled to over $1 million to invest in front line leadership training courses to prepare new young medical leaders that will focus on what Obama’s  medical organizational development should be.
Duke University has started a master's degree program in clinical informatics, to focus on new technology in record keeping to lower waste and improve patient care. The program is a one year program, costs $43,000, and starts this year.
Vanderbilt University School of management is also offering a master’s program for doctors and clinicians to help them manage health care more efficiently. Dartmouth school of business is developing a joint degree program to help manage clinical practice.
COMMENTARY
Business schools are becoming extremely important for medIcal change, and are leading the medical world in moving from medical access to medical efficiency and cost cutting.  With no emphasis on patient care and tort reform, this bill is a total failure. 
Physicians of tomorrow will need business courses in medical school so they can effectively deal with managed government care of medicine as it moves into becoming first a business and last a source of patient care.  Medical school applicants will come from the business schools of America, all with the proper new attitudes for medical care.
With all this emphasis, you can feel confident that Medicare will survive and  500 billion dollars of wasteful spending on behalf of our seniors will be reduced by new good sound Obama business habits. Unfortunately for seniors, the money saved on their treatment denials will go to lower the 1.3 trillion dollar cost of this reform bill.
What do you think? Visit www.drneedles.com for more comments on controversial medical subjects.
Source: Wall Street Journal 12.17. 2009

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