Book Review: Chaos and Organization in Health Care

Introduction

In Chaos and Organization in Health Care, leading Harvard physicians, Thomas Lee and James Mongan, give a fresh perspective into the root cause of the problems seen in health care and offer their treatment plan for a favorable prognosis.

In the past 25 years alone, health care costs have increased an average of 9 percent per year, but safety and reliability continue to receive a failing grade.

By presenting industry research, the authors demonstrate that rising pharmaceutical prices, higher physician wages, the medical malpractice system—which gives rise to defensive medicine—and even the aging of the baby boomer generation are not the culprits in the growth of overall health care spending.

Progress in medical science, which increases the cost of health care as the

authors argue, consists of the technological innovations that lead to new drugs, tests, and surgical techniques. As dramatic advancements in medicine are continuously made, more chaos is created and more increases are experienced in the cost of health care.

The delivery of state-of-the-art care becomes increasingly more complex since progress continues to exponentially add new information and more options for testing and treating conditions. The impact of progress is most evident in the care of complex patients, which account for 5 percent of patients and 50 percent of costs.

To actually lower costs and improve quality a heavy dose of information technology infrastructure which will “improve the reliability, safety, and efficiency of both outpatient and inpatient care” by coordinating physicians, non-physicians, and patients into a team

To make health care more reliable, efficient, safer, and affordable for everyone the industry must organize itself. Access to basic care for every citizen is a moral question that have yet to answer, and as the authors point out, it is a “social commitment made by every other developed country (and many not-so-developed ones)”

Conclusion