A Simple Question
Posted by Chris Martin at 10/15/2008 7:21 PM 
Categories: Health policy, Education, Thinking Inside the Beltway
Categories: Health policy, Education, Thinking Inside the Beltway
So everybody wants to lower the cost of health care and everybody is afraid of what will happen when all of us boomers get on Medicare and so on. Everybody wants to have the government encourage electronic medical records and maybe pay part of the costs for this and Wonks Anonymous thinks this might help a little but not too much.
Why doesn't anybody propose the obvious? If we expect a bunch of sick old geezers in about ten years time wouldn't now be the right time to start training RNs and MDs. I know this seems daring, but maybe we could pay tuition, expenses and a stipend to anyone in a nursing or medical program who met certain standards?
Or maybe we could just hand out tax rebates and create more jobs at Walmart. We have been doing it for years. It's bound to work eventually.
Why doesn't anybody propose the obvious? If we expect a bunch of sick old geezers in about ten years time wouldn't now be the right time to start training RNs and MDs. I know this seems daring, but maybe we could pay tuition, expenses and a stipend to anyone in a nursing or medical program who met certain standards?
Or maybe we could just hand out tax rebates and create more jobs at Walmart. We have been doing it for years. It's bound to work eventually.
Not only do we need increased enrollment in medical schools and nursing schools, but also these wonderful students should be trained to a higher degree of learning.
An entry requirement for nurses to be employed in our hospitals would be the degrees BS,RN. That way, nursing staffing would be easier, i.e., starting with a standard knowledge level for all applicants, and as well, the level of knowledge and maturity of the health care professional, who spends the most time with hospitalized patients, would increase.
Regarding doctors, the specialty of Family Practice, in my view, is simply not advanced enough training. I believe non-surgical adult medical doctors should be required to go on and accomplish subspecialty training. That way, when they enter private practice, they could see both general medical patients and patients in that specialty. Therefore, there would be one less layer of referral, as well as increased competence throughout the country. However, expect strenuous objections to this from the "establishment," because it would mean that patients would regularly be completely worked up and receive ongoing treatment for complicated medical problems without the need for referral. Thus, insurance companies and HMOs would have to spend more money.
I fully developed both of these concepts in chapters 5 and 6 of my book, EQUAL HEALTH CARE FOR ALL, which is now available as a Free Download from my web site.
Regarding electronic medical records, I have described a system for same for the entire country in chapter 8. Dictated operative notes, discharge summaries, and office notes, with the help of voice-recognition software, would function not only as an ongoing part of the medical record, but also would function as a bill generating immediate turn around payment for hospitals and doctors.
R. Garth Kirkwood MD
http://www.equalhealthcareforall.org
doctor_k@equalhealthcareforall.org
Reply to this
You are in fine form for these latest three entries, I must say.
Reply to this