Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech

Gawande’s Goal Is Providing The ‘Right’ Health Care In New Venture By 3 Firms

June 26, 2018 By Julie Rovner, Kaiser Health News

Dr. Atul Gawande, the famed surgeon-writer-researcher chosen to lead a joint health venture by three prominent employers to bring down health costs, said his biggest goal is to help professionals “make it simpler to do the right thing” in delivering care to patients.

His comments at the Aspen Ideas Festival came just days after being named chief executive of a health care partnership unveiled earlier this year by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase & Co. The new enterprise will oversee health coverage for about 1.2 million employees of the companies and their families. Gawande said he will focus on the same behaviors by doctors and hospitals that he studies at his Boston-based think tank Ariadne Labs.

One of the biggest problems in health care is that “doing the right thing is incredibly complicated” and that one of the biggest sources of waste in the system is that patients are given “the wrong care in the wrong way at the wrong time,” he said

He said he hopes to find specific ways to make health care more efficient and the solutions exportable.

“The opportunities are as long as my arm,” he said. “So all we have to do in this new venture is pick a few of them and try to bat them out of the park.”

For example, he said, even in countries where everyone is covered by insurance only about half of those with high blood pressure have it controlled. In the U.S. that percentage is closer to 40 percent. And while Americans spend “tons more money” to treat low back pain, he said, “the level of disability and pain has changed not at all.”

(Image credit: screen grab from CBS News video)

Gawande, 52, was purposely vague about his new job — which he will add to his long list of activities, including teaching at Harvard and operating on patients at a university-affiliated hospital in Boston, writing for The New Yorker, and serving as chairman of Ariadne Labs.

“We are going to come up with a name, it’s one of my first jobs,” he joked to interviewer Judy Woodruff of “PBS NewsHour” during a session at Aspen on Saturday. On Monday, at another session, he told The New York Times’ David Leonhardt that he “had no idea” how many employees would eventually come to work for the organization, although it will be a stand-alone, not-for-profit entity. He declined a separate interview.

But Gawande did talk at length in both appearances about his approach to the new initiative.

“The largest concept here is I get to have a million patients that I as a doctor get to add to my responsibility,” he said Saturday. “And my job to them is to figure out ways that we are going to drive better outcomes, better satisfaction with care and better cost efficiency with new models that can be incubated for all.”

That is essentially what Ariadne already does — tests ways to make care more effective and efficient and spreading those practices in the U.S. and abroad.

As an example, he talked about his mother’s recent knee replacement. A total of 66 health workers saw her in the hospital — he counted — and often provided conflicting advice about whether she should be up or in bed or exactly what she should be doing.

“And you just want to say, ‘Is anybody in charge?’” he said. “That’s the broken system.” The system is moving “from individual delivery of stuff … to team delivery of outcomes. And that’s a radically different place.” He wants to help make that transition more effective.

Gawande said his research has also shown that “the right care” can’t just be dictated. He developed a now-famous surgical checklist that was later mandated for doctors in Canada. But he pointed out in his discussion Saturday that the requirement showed no reduction in surgery-related mortality. Yet in Scotland, where the implementation was more gradual and more data-driven, he said, “in the first three years we saw a more than 25 percent reduction in deaths.”

Gawande said that although he is going to work for companies that provide insurance to their workers, “employer-based care is broken,” with the vast majority of new jobs lackinghealth insurance.

And even those workers who are offered job-based health insurance are increasingly priced out of care. Some people he grew up with in Ohio, he said Monday, “are paying half their income in taxes and health care premiums and going bankrupt because of health care costs.”

When workers have deductibles that are multiples larger than their bank accounts, they stop treating their chronic conditions. “And it has enormous harm for the future,” he said.

Still, he was optimistic about the possibilities of making health care both better and less expensive.

“It’s feasible to do these things,” he said Monday. “But it’s not sexy.”

Related Articles Read More >

Prix Galien USA 2022 nominees
The 24 best medical device innovations of 2022
Wire mesh that has captured a blood clot
How an Embotrap stent retriever thrombectomy treats ischemic strokes
A team of doctors use the Hemafuse device to collect and filter a surgery patient's blood
Autotranfusion device maker ships units to Ukraine
A close-up photo of a human eye
Proposed 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule could have a big impact on glaucoma surgeries

DeviceTalks Weekly.

August 12, 2022
DTW – Medtronic’s Mauri brings years of patient care to top clinical, regulatory, scientific post
See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

Enewsletter Subscriptions

Enewsletter Subscriptions

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Medical Design Sourcing
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to E-newsletter
  • Attend our Monthly Webinars
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media LLC. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech