Does USA have “the best health care system in the world as claimed by conservative senate republicans? Not… according to Donal Berwick the president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).

Despite the fact that Berwick will be charged with beginning to squeeze $400 billion worth of waste and fraud out of the Medicare system over a period of ten years, in the two months since President Obama named Dr. Donald Berwick as his candidate to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, (CMS) not one industry group has voiced opposition to his nomination. Industry insiders understand that as Berwick reins in unnecessary spending, their revenues will be trimmed. Nevertheless Berwick’s reputation for integrity, wisdom and success in protecting patients is such that the health care industry stands behind him, endorsing the president’s choice.

Berwick who has traveled the world seeing foreign health care system first-hand understands how much we have to gain by studying success in other nations as we design a “patient-centered” system that is both more affordable and safer. Berwick often points out that in other countries health care systems are more “system-like.” Doctors and hospitals collaborate to improve the population’s health. They share electronic records and co-ordinate care. Our system, by contrast, is fiercely competitive and fragmented, with most physicians working in small practices while surgical centers vie with hospitals for the most lucrative cases.

According to Berwick, the entire Western world testifies that there are fine ways to provide health insurance to absolutely everybody while investing less than 60 cents on every dollar that we spend today. We need to have the courage and confidence to figure out how to do that ourselves. To say that we spend 15 percent of our gross domestic product on health care and that that is not enough. . . . is ridiculous. It is dishonest. We have enough. We have plenty. What we lack is not social resources, it is honesty.

Source: Maggie Mahar Posted May 26,2010 @ Health Beat