Fix
ER
waits

February 15, 2024 --

Hurry up and wait!

The benjamins, the benjamins... yet again. The incentives in American healthcare continue to be wrong. It's bad for us!

When's the last time you went to an ER? No doubt you wondered why you were kept waiting for so many hours. Why is this system so badly broken?

Dr. Morhaim explains it well: How to fix Maryland's ER wait times: Cut executive salaries. A lot. He also explains what happens when for-profits take over hospitals... It's not pretty.

Viewed through a financial lens, the purpose of an ER in a hospital is to be the primary admissions portal. Typically, at least half of a hospital's patients arrive that way. When the admitting process gets backed up, patients are backlogged in the ER. Why the process slowdown? Cost cutting. Corporate bean counters.

They are doing their job... but it's a job that shouldn't exist, or at least today's incentives shouldn't. Quality of care and outcomes should be the drivers, not corporate (including NOPINOs!) profits. Single-payer is a big part of the solution. But given the present incentive structure (and the political might that perpetuates it) don't expect change anytime soon... Instead, hurry up and wait!

Dr. Morhaim's message?

Don't let anyone tell you that we don't have the money to do better. We do. The money is there. It's just not going to where it's needed: to those who perform the front-line work of patient care and for preventive services and public health.

Go Dr. Morhaim! Go front-line nurses! Go forces for change!

-- cartoon by my Dad, Charles Keller

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