Humanizing Healthcare Reforms

This book looks at the current turmoil facing contemporary healthcare systems worldwide, which has resulted from relentless reorganization being imposed upon them, and argues for a return to a values-based approach to healthcare. Writing from the unique and fresh perspective of social anthropology, the author takes a highly logical approach to practice and emphasizes the importance of values such as compassion, solidarity and social justice. He stipulates that without being able to clearly identify the values and goals that unite its members, healthcare organizations are unlikely to be able to meet the demands of the constant and varied pressures they face, and explains how individuals at every level in healthcare can contribute to positive change within their organizations. This much-needed and highly accessible book will be essential reading for anyone interested in healthcare reform from clinicians and nurses, to managers and policy makers as well as the interested reader.

From a top healthcare futurist, frontline innovator, and Deloitte consultant comes a bold new vision for Humanizing Healthcare—hardwiring humanity at every point of care—that is good for people and good for business. Our nation’s healthcare and life science industry has changed dramatically over the past few decades—and not always for the better. In addition to rising costs and access challenges, the current system has caused needless suffering for patients and clinicians alike: physically, emotionally, financially, and socially. There have been numerous efforts to overhaul the system, but nothing has yet cured healthcare of its illnesses. In Humanizing Healthcare, paramedic-turned-physician executive and Deloitte Managing Director Summer Knight draws on her years of experience on the frontlines of healthcare to offer a powerful road map for real reform. Her refreshingly human approach to transforming our healthcare system provides practical strategies to: Identify core problems in the current system—and find the best workable solutions. Combine healthcare with social services—and build stronger networks of support. Use digital technology and virtual visits to provide expert care at lower costs. Empower healthcare consumers to make smarter choices in their treatment and purchasing options. Form therapeutic alliances between the clinical team (physicians and staff) and the home team (family and friends). Build a solid foundation for ongoing improvements that are truly sustainable, affordable, and humane. This is a clear, compassionate guide to how the industry can transform to embody a more human perspective and use it as a collective north star that will positively impact all stakeholders—consumers, providers, caregivers, staff, executives, shareholders, and the government—alike. Most importantly, this book will open your eyes to what’s possible when you create high-quality, deeply felt alliances that deliver consumer-driven care with value to all. Humanizing Healthcare is the future of health.

Rather than concentrating on a particular health care plan, Humanizing Health Care shows how problem areas can be more clearly recognized, the pricipal issues identified, and possible options evaluated in terms of advantages, disadvantages, and consequences. Topics in the book include a discussion of futures research applied to health technology; cost-benefit and value-added applied to health care; the major requirements for personnel, facilities, and organizational relationships for future health care systems; home-based health care--alternative modes of medical management; and patient participation."Rushmer, a bioengineer, is less interested in specific blueprints for reform...than in calling for a different way of thinking about health and the health care system. His home base is policy science...His tools are computers and imagination. If this sounds dull, you're wrong. It is absorbing, lucid, mercifully compact and anti-polemical, almost totally free of policy science and computer jargon."--The New York Times Book Review

We have a problem in healthcare. That problem is this: in today’s healthcare environment, especially in the United States, people take a back seat to the numbers in almost every aspect of healthcare service delivery. Productivity, utilization, and other business metrics rule the roost. If it’s not calculatable, spreadsheet-able, or measurable, it hardly receives any attention from healthcare managers, administrators, and decision-makers. We can’t simply sit back and allow the dehumanization that currently runs rampant in our clinics and hospitals continue to wreak havoc on one of the most important factors in clinical outcomes: the relationships between healthcare professionals and the people (patients) that they serve. Healthcare is a great and noble profession, but it will only remain so if we, as healthcare professionals, return its focus to its true purpose: people, the people receiving care, and the people working to deliver that care. After all, we’re all more than simply numbers on spreadsheets or items on checklists. Better Outcomes: A Guide for Humanizing Healthcare outlines the 8 changes that organizations and clinicians need to commit to in order to return to the focus of healthcare to where it should be: the patient. The book covers topics related to truly patient-centered care, a biopsychosocial approach to service delivery, patient engagement, interpersonal communication, and developing long-term relationships with patients. Through an exploration of both clinical research and real-life examples and cases, the book outlines and supports a vision of a new healthcare, where skilled, competence, and caring clinicians care for engaged patients to promote better clinical outcomes, deliver unmatched satisfaction, and lasting relationships.

From a top healthcare futurist, frontline innovator, and Deloitte consultant comes a bold new vision for Humanizing Healthcare—hardwiring humanity at every point of care—that is good for people and good for business. Our nation’s healthcare and life science industry has changed dramatically over the past few decades—and not always for the better. In addition to rising costs and access challenges, the current system has caused needless suffering for patients and clinicians alike: physically, emotionally, financially, and socially. There have been numerous efforts to overhaul the system, but nothing has yet cured healthcare of its illnesses. In Humanizing Healthcare, paramedic-turned-physician executive and Deloitte Managing Director Summer Knight draws on her years of experience on the frontlines of healthcare to offer a powerful road map for real reform. Her refreshingly human approach to transforming our healthcare system provides practical strategies to: Identify core problems in the current system—and find the best workable solutions. Combine healthcare with social services—and build stronger networks of support. Use digital technology and virtual visits to provide expert care at lower costs. Empower healthcare consumers to make smarter choices in their treatment and purchasing options. Form therapeutic alliances between the clinical team (physicians and staff) and the home team (family and friends). Build a solid foundation for ongoing improvements that are truly sustainable, affordable, and humane. This is a clear, compassionate guide to how the industry can transform to embody a more human perspective and use it as a collective north star that will positively impact all stakeholders—consumers, providers, caregivers, staff, executives, shareholders, and the government—alike. Most importantly, this book will open your eyes to what’s possible when you create high-quality, deeply felt alliances that deliver consumer-driven care with value to all. Humanizing Healthcare is the future of health.