Search Mediators Near You:

Collaboration Needed To Improve Health Care Delivery System

From the Disputing Blog of Karl Bayer, Victoria VanBuren, and Holly Hayes.

According to an American Hospital Association (AHA) News report, Don Berwick, M.D., Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, testified on February 10, 2011, at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the impact the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will have on Medicare.

Dr. Berwick, said:

“building an improved Medicare program and health care delivery system must be a collaborative effort” with states, health care providers and others. “CMS cannot do this alone, and neither can government as a whole,” he said. In response to concerns by Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-MN) about the law’s potential regulatory burden, Berwick said, “My attitude is that this is a partnership with providers and states. I’m not interested in making their jobs harder.”

Last March, Disputing posted a New York Times interview with Dr. Howard Brody, Professor of Family Medicine and Director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, which discussed a proposal for health care reform involving physicians.

Physicians, Dr. Brody says, are not “innocent bystanders” to increasing health care costs but have made little effort to limit future medical costs. In an editorial published in The New England Journal of Medicine, he writes “If physicians seized the moral high ground, we just might astonish enough other people to change the entire reform debate for the better.”

Drs. Berwick and Brody recognize a collaborative partnership is needed if we are to improve our health care delivery system. What are your thoughts on this issue?

                        author

Holly Hayes

Holly Hayes Bovio received a Masters in Health Administration (MHA) from Duke University and her undergraduate degree from Southern Methodist University. She holds a certificate in mediation from Texas State.  Holly brings a strong hospital operations background to healthcare mediations including a focus on clinical quality.  Holly managed her own consulting… MORE >

Featured Mediators

ad
View all

Read these next

Category

A negotiator walks into a bar: a joke teaches a lesson on problem solving

A friend recently sent me the following joke: During a visit to a mental asylum, a visitor asked the director how to determine whether or not a patient should be...

By Diane J. Levin
Category

Who Needs A Mediator? With Training You Can Resolve A Conflict On Your Own

We are often told by graduates of our conflict resolution workshop, “How to Resolve Conflicts In Your Life”, that the six-step approach to conflict resolution we teach is excellent. Occasionally,...

By Elisabeth Seaman, Jack Hamilton
Category

Exploring Agreement – Readiness for Divorce Mediation

This article describes a private reflective exercise that may be helpful in assessing your current state of readiness to mediate your divorce. Agreement readiness is a key concept in mediation. ...

By Georgia Daniels

Find a Mediator