Learning by Surfing: Issue 3

A gathering of the web’s good health care (related) stuff…

If we could just figure out the communication thing we would solve most of our issues. Here’s the piece (via Jay Parkinson) and a snippet:

Communication in medicine grows worse by the day. What should be a pillar of quality health care is instead a resounding failure.

Patients are rushed through office visits and often leave without having their questions answered. Labyrinthine barriers have to be overcome before speaking with a physician. Reaching a medical provider via the Internet is an impossibly daunting task. Doctors rarely talk to each other to coordinate treatment plans.

The Wall Street Journal reported a slow-down in retail clinic expansion this week. I’m not expecting that to mean the beginning of the end for retail clinics. The model is still viable and will prove valuable in helping our health care situation. From Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report:

The “boom” of walk-in health clinics at pharmacies, supermarkets and retailers “is showing signs of slowing,” the Wall Street Journal reports. As of May 1, there were 963 retail clinics in the U.S., compared with 125 three years ago. However, some retail clinic operators recently have closed 69 clinics in 15 states, and others, including CVS Caremark, have announced their intentions to scale back clinic expansion plans.

My belief of the connections between health care and education have been noted here previously. Richard Florida has provided something further to consider.  My point is that we can’t expect health care to continue to operate in the vacuum that it has (it won’t).  All possibilities (that we can think of) for the future must be considered.

I have often wondered what the efficient scale of a university is and, in particular, whether it would be better to create a second Harvard with the university’s wealth than to expand the first one. Maybe the Massachusetts state legislature will give the powers-that-be at Harvard an incentive to consider more radical expansion plans.

And if states and cities are willing to pony up billions for convention centers and stadia, and hundreds of millions in industrial incentives for factories, how much do you think they much come up with for a Harvard, or MIT, or Stanford, or Oxford relocation. Universities are already setting up foreign campuses. Trust me, it’s just a matter of time until this game gets big.