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Cutting hospitals’ vast supplies waste could make big dent in overall health costs

dumpster

A huge source of potential savings in America’s astronomically expensive healthcare system are the vast quantities of medical supplies and equipment that hospitals and other providers waste.

Read about  Elizabeth McLellan,  R.N., a former resident nurse who now runs Partners for World Health, a nonprofit that collects such waste, much of which is still safe for use, and distributes it to providers in such poor countries as Syria and Uganda.

A ProPublica piece about her notes:

“Ten years ago, McLellan, a registered nurse, shocked to see what hospitals were tossing out, began asking them to give her their castoffs instead. In 2009 she launched Partners for World Health, a nonprofit that now has four warehouses throughout Maine. Today, she and hundreds of volunteers collect medical equipment and supplies from a network of hospitals and medical clinics, sort them and eventually ship containers full of them to such countries as Greece, Syria and Uganda.

“‘This is money. This is one of the reasons why your health insurance is so expensive,” she says.

The article continues:

“Talk to experts and many agree that waste would be a good place to start. In 2012 the National Academy of Medicine estimated the U.S. healthcare system squandered $765 billion a year, more than the entire budget of the Defense Department. . ..The annual waste, the report estimated, could have paid for the insurance coverage of 150 million American workers — both the employer and employee contributions.”

To read the ProPublica article, please hit this link.

 


Measurement demands called ‘out of control’

ruler

The Healthcare Association of New York State says that the drive to measure quality in the U.S. healthcare system is “clearly out of control” and needs major reform.

The organization identified more than 2,100 measurements that   providers must follow to meet  requirements of private health insurers, Accountable Care Organizations,  state and  federal government and other entities.

The volume of measures that exist — characterized by nonexistent or poor  alignment and poor coordination, has created a kind of measure madness, “Consuming precious resources that could be directed toward meaningful efforts to continuously enhance quality and patient safety,” the report states.

The report is but one of the latest from groups asserting that the campaign for ever more measurement is hurting healthcare.  Many critics urge consolidation and standardization in the reporting of healthcare quality and safety data.

 

 

 

 


6 ‘solutions’ to U.S. healthcare problems

 

Private-sector healthcare leaders have identified six “common-sense solutions” to improve the U.S. healthcare system  that  they say would get support from both major political parties even in an election year. They are, as summarized by FierceHealthcare:

  • “Set a ‘firm date’ — Dec. 31, 2018 — to achieve health-information interoperability everywhere in the U.S., with the private sector leading the way to help healthcare organizations share data.”
  • “Implement reforms to improve the Food and Drug Administration, including easing administrative burdens imposed on the agency and taking steps to more quickly deliver innovative treatments and technologies to patients.”
  • “Implement ‘best practices’for Medicare, insurers and healthcare providers to improve all aspects of care for chronically ill patients. Specifically, the report outlines a set of comprehensive care planning principles using diabetes patients as an example.”
  • “Reform outdated physician self-referral and anti-kickback statutes, and expand Medicare payment waiver policies in order to encourage care coordination while preventing fraud and abuse.”
  • “Standardize … privacy laws on the state and federal levels, and improve access to patient data for research. For example, the report notes that “one particularly burdensome barrier to nationwide health information exchange is the many diverse state laws across the country regulating health information alongside HIPAA.”
  • “Improve the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Enhanced Medication Therapy Management (MTM) Model, including allowing participating plans to help develop the quality indicators that comprise the uniform set of MTM data elements, and employing a public comment process that allows a full range of stakeholders to provide input into the final measure set.”

 


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