by joeflower | May 20, 2011 | Future Hospital Industry, Healthcare Economics, Healthcare Management, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare Reform, Systems Thinking, Top Healthcare Stories
[Note to the reader: Anything that is in italics and square brackets (such as this note) is addressed to you, personally. Yes, you. Try it on, see if it fits.] Healthcare has, right now, the greatest opportunity we have seen in our lifetimes to make a big change, to...
by joeflower | Mar 18, 2011 | Future Hospital Industry, Healthcare Economics, Healthcare Management, Systems Thinking, Top Healthcare Stories
Let’s create systems that will take on real risk and that will compete for customers based on real results and real prices. [This article first appeared in the March 15 edition of the American Hospital Association’s H&HN Daily] The current reorganization of...
by joeflower | Jan 3, 2011 | Healthcare Economics, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare Reform, Systems Thinking, Top Healthcare Stories
I had a great discussion not long ago with a naive believer in “free markets”—naïve in his fairly unexplored belief that the market provides a better solution to pretty much any problem than government does. Over lunch, after a talk I gave, this fellow...
by joeflower | Dec 1, 2010 | Future Hospital Industry, Healthcare Economics, Healthcare Management, Healthcare Policy, Systems Thinking, Top Healthcare Stories
The right payment structure keeps patients healthy while saving money. (Originally published in Hospitals and Health Networks Weekly, 11/30/2010) We want healthcare to be abundant, effective, easy, and cheap; for too many of us too much of the time it is scarce,...
by joeflower | Sep 21, 2010 | Future Hospital Industry, Healthcare Economics, Healthcare Insurance, Healthcare Management, Healthcare Reform, Systems Thinking, Top Healthcare Stories
This article 1st appeared on September 20, 2010 in HHN Magazine online site. They are coming in fast under the radar, out of peripheral vision, in the magician’s other hand—and they will change everything. New ideas, surprising networks, stealth business models...
by jflower | Jun 24, 2010 | Future Hospital Industry, Healthcare Economics, Healthcare Management, Healthcare Policy, Systems Thinking, Top Healthcare Stories
Here’s a simple key to parsing the future economics of healthcare. We have been trying for over 30 years to control healthcare costs. And there is little evidence that any of these efforts have had much effect. For decades the rise in healthcare costs has been...