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Improving health in the shorter term
Some of the relatively low-cost, high-return ways to improve health and reduce health care cost increases are relatively unglamorous and do not involve big government programs. For example, at Pitney Bowes, we reduced the rate of seasonal influenza and other infectious diseases by having an aggressive outreach on seasonal immunizations and on hand-washing and other hygiene-focused practices, such as more frequent cleaning of surfaces on which viruses or bacteria reside and spread. The rate of hospital-acquired infections, which cost our health care system dearly, could be reduced significantly if all hospitals focused similarly on infectious disease prevention.
Another relatively low-cost area of focus, which pays both significant short and long term dividends, is more aggressive outreach on prenatal counseling and lifestyle modification. Today, government programs are predominantly focused on the medical interaction required close to the time the mother delivers. However, the real benefit of prenatal counseling is at much earlier points in the pregnancy, at points during which an intervention can reduce the incidence of low birth-weight, premature babies. At Pitney Bowes, we used a program called Great Expectations, which provided financial incentives to get expectant mothers to participate, and we achieved lower incidence of premature births.
Any investment in getting children and adolescents to adopt better living habits pays back handsomely. For example, increasing the price of tobacco products by 10 percent reduces the percentage of teenagers who start smoking by 4 percent as a number of studies summarized in 2004 by Professor John Taurus of the University of Illinois at Chicago shows.
We have to refocus our efforts on improving health, as opposed solely to increasing insurance access. If we do not solve the health and health care access problems, and only give everyone an insurance card, we are effectively rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
By
Michael Critelli
|
November 5, 2009; 10:55 AM ET
| Category:
Prevention
,
Primary Care
,
Public policy
,
Taxes
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Posted by: magellan1 | November 17, 2009 5:39 PM
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Certainly one quick way to fix the health care system is to compare apples to apples. It is my understanding that the U.S. and Europe calculate infant mortality differently and in a way that skews comparisons in favor of the old world.
In the U.S., an infant is counted as "dead" if they die in the first 24 hours. In Europe, they are not counted as "dead" if they die within the first 72 hours. I guess they're just in limbo. This makes infant mortality, which is one of the important components of health care measures, seem higher in the U.S. than in Europe; creating the misconception that our health care ranks lower.
If you're going to compare systems to justify a major overhaul of our health care, then we should get the figures right.