Dr. David Winn Founder of e-MDs EHR Responds to “Money Driven Medicine” With Suggested Solutions for Healthcare Reform
Posted Nov 30 2009 10:01pm
Dr. Winn is the founder of e-MDs ambulatory electronic medical records systems located in Austin, Texas. After seeing the post on my blog and watching the video, he offers his response. By the way, this is the last evening you can watch the documentary for free and for a reasonable fee you can purchase the DVD as well. It is suggested material for use at hospitals and other healthcare institutions. I happen to know Dr. Winn and his sentiments are real and authentic. I have had a few others email to say thanks for including this information at the blog from hospital CEOs and a few others.
I do have to also mention that he shares the same sentiments I often mention with healthcare reform, and that is the lack of confidence with our current Congress to fully understand what is happening and in my opinion, it lags from most members probably not being an active participant in their own healthcare. I n other words with the prescription being talked about for everyone for managing healthcare, you have to participate to see value and without that experience, you just can’t get what everyone else is doing and talking about. It sadly appears we have no participating role models today, just a lot of “its for those guys over there” and items in the news that seem to indicate mixed or little progress with true reform of US healthcare. BD
“Money drives everything in a free market, capitalistic system and that, in theory, improves competition and quality. Due to the complexity of illness and the difficulty for consumers to comparative shop and due to a perverse payment system by the insurance industry (Wall street rewards insurance companies with higher stock prices for cutting costs – ie. withholding/denying payments), U.S Healthcare does not operate efficiently in such a free enterprise model (and certainly not in the best interest of patients) when constrained by such factors. Intermountain has an interesting model of employed physicians who are expected to apply quality metrics to the treatment of certain conditions.
Aided by an EMR, they track physician performance along best practices and meet regularly with physicians to show them how they are doing. Actual performance data compared to peers helps outlier physicians to understand where they are deviating from best practices and modify their performance accordingly. Without good data, personal bias and anecdotal experience tend to blind physicians to where they might have deficiencies. As a self insured, not for profit entity, Intermountain is able to wield the EMR to show higher quality and do so at a lower price than traditional hospital/physician groups.
Many healthcare providers are happy with the status quo. They know how to ‘game the system’ by cranking up ‘visit’ volume, invasive procedures or gimmicks like chelation therapy – and get quite rich doing so, but this is not in the best interest of their patients or society in general. I believe the U.S. will continue to lag behind the world health community (W.H.O.) in quality scores and morbidity/mortality until something drastic is done.
By drastic, I believe the entire health insurance industry needs to be disbanded in favor of not for profit physician/hospital owned communities like Intermountain. I believe the savings from eliminating the insurance middleman would more than pay for a universal healthcare system. EMR technology and the expansion of chronic disease management and prevention as envisioned by such models as Intermountain and the primary care driven Medical Home will make this possible. Whether or not Congress has enough courage and moral conviction to stand down the insurance industry is the rate limiting step IMO.”
In addition, here’s a letter Dr. Winn furnished that he has written and sent to President Obama. You can double click or follow this link to read the enlarged version. BD
I should have been on to this sooner, but thank goodness for Twitter as I received a message about it today and say thanks for letting me know. There are a few days left in November so you can watch the 85 minute documentary. I have written about it and watched myself so here’s a few notes below from my prior posts. Part of the entire theme here is to practice medicine wisely and not just do more to get paid more, and, involve and care for the patient, make healthcare revolve around the patient and care, not paperwork and administration.
Dr. Winn is the founder of e-MDs ambulatory electronic medical records systems located in Austin, Texas. After seeing the post on my blog and
watching the video, he offers his response. By the way, this is the last evening you can watch the documentary for free and for a reasonable fee you can purchase the DVD as well. It is suggested material for use at hospitals and other healthcare institutions. I happen to know Dr. Winn and his sentiments are real and authentic. I have had a few others email to say thanks for including this information at the blog from hospital CEOs and a few others.
I do have to also mention that he shares the same sentiments I often mention with healthcare reform, and that is the lack of confidence with our current Congress to fully understand what is happening and in my opinion, it lags from most members probably not being an active participant in their own healthcare. I n other words with the prescription being talked about for everyone for managing healthcare, you have to participate to see value and without that experience, you just can’t get what everyone else is doing and talking about. It sadly appears we have no participating role models today, just a lot of “its for those guys over there” and items in the news that seem to indicate mixed or little progress with true reform of US healthcare. BD
In addition, here’s a letter Dr. Winn furnished that he has written and sent to President Obama. You can double click or follow this link to read the enlarged version. BD
Dr. Mr. Obama - Dr. David WinnThe Medical Quack: Money Driven Medicine The Documentary – Streaming During the Month of November So You Can Watch for Free