HealthCare_2.0


Defining Our Vision -- One Idea at a Time

  What Is?  

  Fair & Affordable, Health vs. Medical Care, Health Assurance, Health Care_2.0,   
 
Analyzing Comparative Effectiveness (ACE), Information Station, Primary Care  

 

Fair & Affordable Health Care
 
a system that covers all its citizens without taxing the middle class, rationing medical services for the elderly, disabled or terminally ill, limiting the advance of medical science or turning healthcare over to faceless government bureaucrats . . .

Two trillion a year is more than enough money to treat everyone
and meet every genuine medical need.

 

"Health" Care

A health-based model of care preserves, protects and maintains the health of the already healthy (over 90% of the population). Healthcare includes scientific research,  public education and outreach campaigns. It also provides patient services designed to prevent suffering and prolong healthy function by reducing the incidence, duration and severity of disease.

In our national search for effective and affordable care fairly provided to all, we must develop policies that make a health-based model as the bedrock of our system. A health-based system appreciates medical services, but is organized around the preservation of health and the prevention of disease.

In the US, we neither teach or pay MDs to provide ‘health’ care.

 Longer version: Health Care is not the same as Medical Care:

Health ASSURANCE
is a fair and affordable system that includes an insurance plan
 that doesn't cost more than 10% of a family's income, refuse coverage because
of a pre-existing condition, drop you when you get sick or need surgery, bury you under  ever escalating co-pays or impose yearly or life-time maximum benefits . . .

As long as these plans work, it doesn't matter if they are public or private. However, the welfare of patients must come before profits and remain the foremost goal of the organization. This precludes the customary Wall Street definition which claims a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders as the prime directive for all investor-owned businesses. In order for an investor-owned corporation to provide Health ASSURANCE, it must resolve this inherent conflict of interest in favor of the patient.

 

HealthCare_2.0 -- a Vision for the 21st Century

A rational, science-based process will determine the "best practices" for all health care and medical services, naturally incorporating the benefits and cost-saving of scientific innovation and new technology.

All reforms must be grounded in a forward-facing vision, because how things are now is not how it will be in 10 or 20 years. Second Generation medicine will come from the marriage of the biological and technological sciences. It is already on the horizon and moving toward us with great speed. The marriage between the biological, genetic and technological science is revolutionizing 21st century health care in the same way that Pasteur’s 1881 germ theory of infectious disease, coupled with the new science of microbiology and discovery of antibiotics, gave us 20th century "modern medicine". Just as 20th century science provided the principles of ‘sterility’ that make organ transplants and other surgeries possible, so will biological, genetic and technological innovations make surgical solutions unnecessary for an increasing number of people over the next two decades.

DNA-based diagnosis, genomics and the new science of epigenetics will dramatically reduce future health care costs through early detection, improved treatment and the ability to use DNA information to predetermine which drugs will be effective and eliminate those that would cause an adverse reactions. Gene-splicing and yet-to-be invented treatments will eliminate many previously fatal or expensive diseases. All it takes is a can-do attitude and the right expenditure of our plentiful resources.

  The Other Pillar of a Cost-effective System – Primary Care 

ACE
Analyzing comparative effectiveness:
-- a rational method to determine "Best Practices"

A health-based model of care uses a process of scientific evaluation to analyzes all models and methods of care, medical technologies, treatments, devices and products for their comparative effectiveness, that is, a combination of clinical success and cost-effectiveness. When combined with evidence-based medicine, the determination of clinical effectiveness provides a model of care based on ‘best practices’.

As an upgraded system, HealthCare_2. no model of health care, no form of medical treatment or product would be identified as a standard of care without having established its safety and comparative effectiveness. By identifying the most clinically effective methods and ‘best practices’, we can use the right science and the right practitioner at the right time and for the right reasons. This is where preventative medicine starts and the routine overuse of drugs and procedures is stopped.

State-of-the-art analysis of comparative effectiveness (ACE) gives modern healthcare providers the tools to ‘ace’ the system in every way – truly a win-win solution. When it comes to 21st century health care, ACE should be the American standard of care.

 Longer version: Best Practices and Comparative Effectiveness      HR 3200 sec. 1181  

The Information Station -- the Future is Now!

Within the last 15 years, innovations in information technology, including the Internet and Google search, has made information on evidence-base medicine democratically available to anyone - lay person or professional - who is computer literate.

The newest and most portable generation of IT uses a smart phones and PDAs to put the very best of Western medical science at your finger tips -- a personal "Information Station" right in your own pocket. These medical information programs include the "Current Practical Guideline in Primary Care", the "5-Minute Clinical Consult",  and the Cochrane Reviews' evidence-based "Guideline for pregnancy and childbirth". In addition, there are apps for prescription drugs, calculators to figure dosage and ones that give the glycemic index of thousands of foods which is helpful in counseling patients in diets that reduce the likelihood of developing diabetes. These applications all include an on-going process of updating the data as the body of knowledge changes. 

The FDA offers a free service called "Mobile News"  that electronically sends the latest updates on consumer health information, MedWatch Safety Alerts, news releases and recalls for drugs and medical devices. This includes information on the H1N1 flu virus and recognized 'best practices' for its treatment and measures to reduce contagion of this infectious illness.

These wonderful applications can provide any health care professional with instant access to the latest (and constantly updated) expert opinion on 750 medical conditions and diseases. Each app provides a list of symptoms, labs and other tests to order, values that would confirm or disprove a diagnosis, therapeutic principles for its management and the length and severity of the disease. In easy to follow form, these programs identify practical steps in making appropriate and timely clinical decisions and list the current, evidence-based 'best practices' for its treatment.

The ready availability of the Information Station technology  is a cost-effective opportunity to greatly improve health care, expand access to vital information and reduce medical errors and mistakes. It can and will broaden the based of primary care to incorporate non-physician practitioners and non-allopathic physicians as primary care providers as the new standard of care.
 

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This website is dedicated to Baby Boy Lance Anderson and Donna Driscoll , LM