Healthcare Leadership: Fixing healthcare with the right questions

The October 2011 Harvard Business Review includes a column titled To Fix Health Care, Ask the Right Questions.  The column was written by Henry Mintzberg, Director of the International Masters for Health Leadership program at McGill University.

Mintzberg writes, “Fixing U.S. health care was never going to be easy, but some persistent myths have made it more difficult than it should be.”

“The first myth is that the system is failing.  In reality, it is succeeding, but in an expensive way.  Another myth is that costs can be brought under control by running health care more like a business and encouraging more competition.  In America health care is already more commercial and competitive than it is anywhere else.  Nonetheless, the costs are the highest on earth, by far, and the quality of care is extremely uneven.”

Mintzberg provides detail and justification for his recommendations which include:

1.  “Look to the people on the ground, not outside experts, for ideas for real improvements.

2.  Build communities that engage people rather than conventional hierarchies that control them.

3.  Stop debating the merits of public versus private governance.

4.  Encourage greater collaboration” – not competition.

I encourage you to read the short article on page 44.  Remember, readers of the Harvard Business Review are some of the most influential and successful leaders and business executives in America and throughout the world. 

You would do well to know what subscribers of the Harvard Business Review are reading.  Particularly, when the article is focused on the topic of How To Fix Healthcare.

 

Copyright © 2011 by Dan Nielsen

Founder, National Institute for Healthcare Leadership  www.nihcl.com

Founder, America’s Healthcare Leaders  www.americashealthcareleaders.com

Cell 214-695-1292