04.02.14
Innovation Outpaces Affordability, Physicians Lament
The state of healthcare is one of increasing innovation and quality of care, but at a rate that cannot keep up with human resources and affordability, said a panel of experts at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) in New Orleans, La.
“Health care costs in the United States continue to spiral upwards,” said Khaled Saleh, M.D., professor and chair of the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. “The United States spends nearly $3 trillion a year on health care and this figure is projected to increase even more annually. Simultaneously, there has been diminished health insurance access throughout the country, which places even greater pressures on the health system. The U.S.
government attempted to resolve this issue with the Affordable Care Act. Additionally, quality has continued to be variable despite the high spending. The result is that different centers within the same geographical region can have severe discrepancies in care quality. Overall, the variable health care quality of the U.S. health system compares unfavorably to other similarly industrialized nations which also spend less.”
By 2020, Saleh said, 50 percent of Americans will have at least one chronic disease. Physicians are expensive to train, hire and retain, and the median medical school debt now stands at $170,000.
“The bad news is that progress raises costs and generates chaos,” Saleh said. “Individual clinicians feel less knowledgeable. There has been an increase in super specialization, which means increased fragmentation. Physicians are starting to know more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing—or less and less about more and more until they known nothing about everything.”
A question from a surgeon in the audience was simple: “The AAOS is building a beautiful new headquarters facility in Rosemont, Ill. Why can’t they designate one corner of the building as a biomechanical testing unit, testing devices to show that a $900 pedicle screw is as good as a $20 pedicle screw—it could solve a lot of problems we’re having in healthcare right now.”
“Well that’s a loaded question,” said Saleh. “We have a body that does that already, and it’s called the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Are they efficient? No. They could help us a lot more by expediting these processes.”
Into this doom and gloom enters the millennial work force. The panel at AAOS included Blaine T. Manning, BS, and Jamal K. Saleh, B.S., (Khaled’s son), two young students who discussed medical education and where the millennial generation—those under the age of 34—would take healthcare in the future.
“Millennials’ affinity for teamwork and technology uniquely suites them to facilitate the transition to the ‘Second Curve,’ which will be comprised of a high-tech, team-based approach to health care delivery,” said Manning.
While Khaled Saleh pointed out the increasing cost of healthcare and slammed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for attempting to “dictate” healthcare rules to healthcare providers and panel member Daniel M. Adair, M.D., complained that electronic medical records systems are “never ideal for our needs,” the younger Saleh stressed how students and aspiring medical professionals from across specialties—medical degree-track students, pharmacy students, nursing students, dentistry students—are collaborating to find better ways to think about clinical care.
“Many millennials across all disciplines and schools in health sciences recognize the importance of interprofessional learning in future practice,” said Jamal Saleh, showing a slide depicting students from different healthcare fields in a university classroom forum. “Interest in inter-professional learning was also linked with preparing to become better physicians as well as giving consideration to the needs of patients and to engage with other disciplines and professions to provide for that need. With an interest in inter-professional learning and collaboration, millennials will be far less worried about issues of rank, credentialing or licensing and far more flexible over relationships and skill sets driven by outcomes.”
While the rapid increase in technology systems in the space of medical care has been difficult for the current order of medical professionals to keep up with, the much derided millennial are—purportedly—up to the task. And how will they dig themselves out of debt? With studies that show the generations’ affinity for teamwork(which goes against the stereotype of the lonely web-surfer), they will be their own best advocates for medical education reform, Jamal Saleh concluded.1,2,3
The state of healthcare is one of increasing innovation and quality of care, but at a rate that cannot keep up with human resources and affordability, said a panel of experts at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) in New Orleans, La.
“Health care costs in the United States continue to spiral upwards,” said Khaled Saleh, M.D., professor and chair of the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. “The United States spends nearly $3 trillion a year on health care and this figure is projected to increase even more annually. Simultaneously, there has been diminished health insurance access throughout the country, which places even greater pressures on the health system. The U.S.
government attempted to resolve this issue with the Affordable Care Act. Additionally, quality has continued to be variable despite the high spending. The result is that different centers within the same geographical region can have severe discrepancies in care quality. Overall, the variable health care quality of the U.S. health system compares unfavorably to other similarly industrialized nations which also spend less.”
By 2020, Saleh said, 50 percent of Americans will have at least one chronic disease. Physicians are expensive to train, hire and retain, and the median medical school debt now stands at $170,000.
“The bad news is that progress raises costs and generates chaos,” Saleh said. “Individual clinicians feel less knowledgeable. There has been an increase in super specialization, which means increased fragmentation. Physicians are starting to know more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing—or less and less about more and more until they known nothing about everything.”
A question from a surgeon in the audience was simple: “The AAOS is building a beautiful new headquarters facility in Rosemont, Ill. Why can’t they designate one corner of the building as a biomechanical testing unit, testing devices to show that a $900 pedicle screw is as good as a $20 pedicle screw—it could solve a lot of problems we’re having in healthcare right now.”
“Well that’s a loaded question,” said Saleh. “We have a body that does that already, and it’s called the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Are they efficient? No. They could help us a lot more by expediting these processes.”
Into this doom and gloom enters the millennial work force. The panel at AAOS included Blaine T. Manning, BS, and Jamal K. Saleh, B.S., (Khaled’s son), two young students who discussed medical education and where the millennial generation—those under the age of 34—would take healthcare in the future.
“Millennials’ affinity for teamwork and technology uniquely suites them to facilitate the transition to the ‘Second Curve,’ which will be comprised of a high-tech, team-based approach to health care delivery,” said Manning.
While Khaled Saleh pointed out the increasing cost of healthcare and slammed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for attempting to “dictate” healthcare rules to healthcare providers and panel member Daniel M. Adair, M.D., complained that electronic medical records systems are “never ideal for our needs,” the younger Saleh stressed how students and aspiring medical professionals from across specialties—medical degree-track students, pharmacy students, nursing students, dentistry students—are collaborating to find better ways to think about clinical care.
“Many millennials across all disciplines and schools in health sciences recognize the importance of interprofessional learning in future practice,” said Jamal Saleh, showing a slide depicting students from different healthcare fields in a university classroom forum. “Interest in inter-professional learning was also linked with preparing to become better physicians as well as giving consideration to the needs of patients and to engage with other disciplines and professions to provide for that need. With an interest in inter-professional learning and collaboration, millennials will be far less worried about issues of rank, credentialing or licensing and far more flexible over relationships and skill sets driven by outcomes.”
While the rapid increase in technology systems in the space of medical care has been difficult for the current order of medical professionals to keep up with, the much derided millennial are—purportedly—up to the task. And how will they dig themselves out of debt? With studies that show the generations’ affinity for teamwork(which goes against the stereotype of the lonely web-surfer), they will be their own best advocates for medical education reform, Jamal Saleh concluded.1,2,3