Decisions and Org Structure LO5113 - And health reforms

Bob Luttman (rluttman@zork.tiac.net)
Thu, 25 Jan 1996 11:11:58 -0500

Replying to LO5097 --

>I agree with your diagnosis, by your treatment is disastrous. It seems to
>be a technological fix to a very complex problem. Americans need to
>realise that most of the rest of the world has been much more successful
>at controlling costs than they have. The reasons are complex, but they
>need to be understood. One of the citicisms of US medical training for
>Australian Docs is that people are trained to use technology rather than
>to think about the problem. Whether this is fair I don't know, but it
>seems that many of our modern age failures are due to using technology
>without thinking properly about what we are doing.
>
>We need doctors who are trained to be efficient. Who is talking about
>that!!!
>
>Gray.

Thanks for your response. I did not apparently make myself clear because I
am not advocating a technological fix. I was referring to a computer
system that flags unnecessary, redundant, or very expensive tests and
medications and feeds that (with literature references) to the physician
as a way of reducing these items. I agree about making MD's more
efficient, that's what my work with clinical and operational processes is
all about.

The point I was trying to make is that much of the inefficiency is due to
structural impediments that LO tools (and TQM and BPR) can overcome.
Clinical pathways and information systems can facilitate this work, and
the implementation of new processes, but technology can not overcome
structural issues.

Sorry for confusing everybody.

--
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 Bob Luttman
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