by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | September 02, 2019
From the September 2019 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
AG: I would like to have two wishes. First, I think the macro political debate that we’re having — should we have single payor, fix the ACA, do something else? — misses the point. The challenge right now is how do we deliver really good healthcare to our patients that is both affordable and can be sustained by our healthcare delivery system? I would argue that the “Medicare for All” debate is a false debate because it suggests that the way we’re going to address the cost of care is through the government dictating what will be paid for health care services. I’m concerned about that price point being set at a level that’s not sufficient to sustain the quality of services we need to provide to patients.
The new Infusion Suite at Mount Sinai St. Luke's serves as an extension of the highly regarded Tisch Cancer Institute at The Mount Sinai Hospital.
The real debate should be about how we can organize the delivery system in a way that reduces waste significantly such that we can change the trajectory of health care costs. Some estimates have pegged the waste generated by our health care delivery system at $750 billion annually. One of the reasons we’re committed to Lean at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s is because its focus is the elimination of waste and the introduction of value to the patient through innovation.
The second wish I would make — and it’s one of the things I talk about at Mount Sinai — is about our ability to innovate. The types of discoveries and the science that’s happening here at Mount Sinai, it makes me immensely proud to be part of it in my small way. But we, as an industry, need to innovate for the day-to-day with the same enthusiasm and urgency that we apply to finding a cure for cancer. Patients need to experience a health care delivery system that is seamless, integrated, connected, clear and understandable. We need to do that. We need to innovate at that level. There are places in the country that do it well. I think Mount Sinai is on the way to doing it well. We need to foster that type of commitment to day-to-day innovation and improvement throughout the health system in the United States. If we could do that, we would begin to impact cost, wring out waste and change how healthcare is delivered. My fear is that our political debate obscures this reality — where the real action should be occurring. My hope would be that we change what we talk about to talk about this.
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