Each of the three articles focused on how an insurance company or health care provider has tried to address a fundamental problem in health care by adopting a new way of paying for or delivering care. The subjects were all willing to experiment with new ways of thinking about how they provided care.
“A Chance to Pick Hospice, and Still Hope to Live,” looked at an experiment by insurers and hospices to let terminally ill patients continue receiving potentially life-prolonging medical treatments even while taking advantage of the services hospices provide for people who are dying. More typically, insurance plans would force terminally ill cancer patients, for example, to make a stark choice between getting chemotherapy or receiving the nursing care and other services that ease their final months.
The article “In Bid for Better Care, Surgery With a Warranty” reported efforts by a Pennsylvania hospital group to improve cardiac surgery, in part by changing the reimbursement process. The group, Geisinger Health Systems, was able to improve its medical outcomes through a series of measures and was trying to work out a payment system in which an insurer and the hospital would benefit financially from providing better care.
“Managing Outcomes Helps a Children’s Hospital Climb in Renown” examined the way Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center has systematically established itself as a center for excellence for treating a variety of complicated pediatric diseases. Cincinnati Children’s has managed to attract patients from around the country by specializing in certain diseases and aggressively tracking how patients fare under its care.