Nearly everyone in health care wants to cut waste and reduce unnecessary costs — until the conversation turns to advanced chronic illness and end-of-life care. Fears about “pulling the plug on granny,” no matter how ill she may be, have slowed progress toward value-based care. As Atul Gawande notes in Being Mortal, “Such talk, however carefully framed, raises the specter of a society readying itself to sacrifice its sick and aged.”
Giving Seriously Ill Patients More Choices About Their Care
A new model can increase the quality and reduce the cost.
May 23, 2017
Summary.
Discussions about cutting waste and reducing unnecessary costs in health care are complicated when it comes to advanced chronic illnesses and end-of-life care. No one wants to be seen as sacrificing the sick and aged in favor of monetary savings. Yet a new clinical model shows that you can increase the quality of advance illness management while also dramatically reducing costs. It involves helping seriously ill people choose exactly what kind of care they want — and what they want to avoid. In other words, this model hardwires patient agency into clinical operations.