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One American health statistic that is strikingly above average: Life expectancy for Americans who have already reached the age of 65. At that point, they can expect to live longer than the average in industrialized countries.
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One American health statistic that is strikingly above average: Life expectancy for Americans who have already reached the age of 65. At that point, they can expect to live longer than the average in industrialized countries. That's because Americans above age 65 actually have universal health care coverage: Medicare. Suddenly, a diverse population with pockets of poverty is no longer such a drawback. Nicholas Kristoff, NYT
Well……maybe we pay more to get better around the clock service
Coronary Bypass Proceduresper 100,000 Population, 2006 *2005 **2004 Data: OECD Health Data 2008 (June 2008).
Potential Years of Life Lost Due to Diabetes per 100,000 Population, 2006 *2005 **2004 Data: OECD Health Data 2008 (June 2008).
Got any more encouraging/upbeat facts? • We rank 37th in infant mortality (partly because of many premature births) and 34th in maternal mortality • A child in the United States is two-and-a-half times as likely to die by age 5 as in Singapore or Sweden, and • An American woman is 11 times as likely to die in childbirth as a woman in Ireland • An African-American in New Orleans has a shorter life expectancy than the average person in Vietnam or Honduras. • Canadians live longer than Americans do after kidney transplants and after dialysis
Readmissions are a problem in the USThere is something we are not doing
But with all the vaunted hospitals, medical schools and physicians in the NYC region, surely………. • The study's lead author, Dr. David Goodman, suggests that the range in practice is linked to variations among physician and hospitals. "The care that patients receive has less to do with what they want and need and more to do with the hospitals they happen to seek care from," he said, adding, "Geography is destiny." • Dartmouth Atlas report on “Quality of End of Life Cancer Care”, November 2010
Nearly 1 of every 4 Medicare admits would need to be eliminated to achieve national practice standards
Doing the “Right Thing” for our community… could be very beneficial to our finances arbitrage opportunity
Solutions abound The will to change, on the other hand….
Medicine is remarkably conservative to the point of being properly characterized as sclerotic, even ossified. “Eric Topol, “The Creative Destruction of Medicine”
“There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the risks and costs of comfortable inaction.” – John F. Kennedy