One Small Step
Ask anyone who was alive in the 60’s to list the greatest accomplishments of our country and they will most certainly include the successful flight of Apollo 11 and the first moon landing. The US spent nearly $25 billion dollars to get Neil Armstrong and company to the moon and back, but what did we really see when we got there? Buzz Aldrin captured it best when he looked at Neil Armstrong and said: “OK. About ready to go down and get some Moon rock?” $25 billion dollars and over 200,000 miles to get there and we get…moon rock.
In 2008, the US government spent nearly $400 billion dollars on Medicare with another $200 million on Medicaid, and the numbers continue to grow every year. We now find ourselves facing the challenge of nearly 500 pages of new rules governing how this money will be spent and facing a long and arduous journey to find new models of care delivery to somehow make this all work in a new and different way. If and when we finally reach the promised land of Accountable Care Organizations, what will we find when we finally arrive?
The creation of new models of care delivery may be the greatest challenge healthcare has faced in decades, but where we actually end up may not be the most important part of the journey. Even though our Apollo astronauts came back with a bucket of rocks, the trip to get there had great value in and of itself. Without it we may never have had dialysis machines, CT scanners, contemporary physical therapy machines, cook/chill equipment, Mylar, athletic shoes, or even cordless power tools.
What new innovations will come from our journey to a new world of healthcare? A patient portal app that is standard on all smartphones? New medication delivery systems that eliminate the need for IV lines entirely? True real-time quality measures and interventions? - (Mr. Browne, this is your patient care coordinator. I see through your iPhone app that your BP has been above baseline for 5 days. Have you been taking your medications?) And many, many others….
The destination of the new care model as it has been currently defined may end up being no more exciting or memorable than a big pile of moon rock, but the innovations we create along the way may just make it worth the trip.
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