Our Corrosive Culture of Quality
The article in the WSJ was called White House Review of VA Finds “Corrosive Culture”. Here are a couple of highlights:
- A White House review of the VA health system points to a culture that degraded the timely delivery of care and requires a restructuring to improve transparency and accountability.
- It found what Mr. Nabors described as a “corrosive culture” that affects employee performance and patient care. He added that the Veterans Health Administration structure has “impeded appropriate management, supervision and oversight.”The review also found the VA’s goal for scheduling many medical appointments within 14 days is “arbitrary, ill-defined and misunderstood.” That goal had been set in 2011. The VA recently eliminated that 14-day target.
Really? So, the 14 day rule was “arbitrary, ill-defined and misunderstood”? Of course it was! In fact, those three terms are the definition of QUALITY and this 14 day rule was what was put in for quality reasons. What’s funny is that you will see the first highlight uses the administralian terms I pointed out the other day (transparency and accountability). They love this crap. Why didn’t they put in my favorite bogus term – quality? Because that is what made them create the 14-day target! So, they subtley removed it.
A little wordy, but definitely worth reading:
http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2014/07/11/missing-the-forest-for-the-granularity/
Does anyone think for one second that most socialized health care systems aren’t like this? Do you really think for one second that Spain or Italy have better health care, or is it just institutionalized corruption and falsification of data? Anyone else remember the story about the Greek hospital that had several gardeners on the payroll but no gardens? How about the Charite’ artificial lumbar disks that worked so well in Europe? How many of those do you see being implanted these days?
Right on! C’mon AM readers, chime in – why do you think government will do a better job if they are just put more in charge?
“arbitrary, ill-defined and misunderstood”
Let’s see. That would be MU, ICD-10, P4P, PQRS, PCMH, MOC, ACO . . . .