Читать книгу Transforming Healthcare - Morey Menacker - Страница 7

One may ask, “Why would a physician who has worked for years in our current healthcare system want to transform said system?” While there is no easy answer, I will try to explain. My postgraduate training took place in an inner city environment, where the majority of patients were hospitalized due to complications of their environment. This included drug addiction, poorly controlled hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, food insecurity, homelessness, and trauma. It became obvious early in my career that prevention was infinitely cheaper, and more rewarding, than treatment. The conundrum was in developing a method to pay for prevention.

It is imperative that those of us who work in a particular field, and benefit financially from that work, must give back in some way as gratitude for the opportunity, and to preserve these opportunities for future generations. It is also much easier to comment and suggest change in a field that has defined your entire life. We all have a responsibility to leave this world a better place than we found it.

It is common occurrence that when an international celebrity, or a wealthy foreigner, becomes ill, they automatically fly to the United States for their healthcare. These individuals would not come here if they thought the medical care was inferior. However, we are constantly bombarded by the media with tales of inadequate care, greed, malpractice, and refusal to provide needed services. Is it possible for these two disparate stories to both be true? The answer is a resounding YES. We are blessed with the best technology, the best treatments, the best research, the best hospitals, and the best physicians, yet the care provided can be disjointed, inadequate at times, cost prohibitive, and occasionally inappropriate.

This book attempts to explain how we got to this place and how we can get better.