Earlier this week Dr. Robert Margolis, the CEO of Torrance-based HealthCare Partners Medical Group, and I co-authored an op-ed in the Los Angeles Daily News. Our essay highlights some of the work we did on our nonpartisan, multi-stakeholder California Task Force on Affordable Care, which makes recommendations that could save Californians $300 billion during the next decade while improving the quality of care.
We also point out ways in which health care isn't just about passing laws and spending money. It's also about us. As we noted, "developing a medical system that keeps us healthy without making us poor isn't truly within the control of politicians in Sacramento or Washington, D.C. Getting a better bang for our buck depends mostly on us." (And no, we did not know at the time that the brand new Healthcare.gov site that went up today would have "Take health care into your own hands" as a slogan.)
That means doctors and patients have to work together to learn about quality at local hospitals. In California, they can use both Medicare Hospital Compare and CalHospitalCompare.org to search for the highest quality of care; consumer engagement helps create pressure for better value for medical spending.
Politicians need to do their job on problems like obesity. Sacramento is considering taxing sweetened beverages. Los Angeles has already banned construction of new fast food restaurants in certain areas of town. (This post also describes how one county has even cracked down on "Happy Meals" -- no toys unless the meal is happy and healthy.) But Californians have to make better decisions for themselves, too.
We wrote about a program at Southern California-based HealthCare Partners where "clinicians, nurses, and social workers interact with high-risk patients following their discharge from hospitals to reduce unnecessary and expensive follow-up hospital stays and emergency department visits. This effort has succeeded in reducing readmission of these high-risk patients by 18 percent, savings millions of dollars." (Joanne Kenen wrote a detailed post last week about this approach.)
As we wrote, "health care reform isn't over. In fact, it's just getting started."
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