The new Productivity Commission report, Shifting the Dial, hit at least three things spot-on about achieving health reform in Australia.
The first is that the current system is not focused on patients and delivering the best health outcomes at the least cost.
The second is the health system is provider-driven and basically operates as a rigid payment mechanism underwriting existing providers’ incomes and models of care — thereby stymieing innovation.
The third is that achieving change depends on governments and policymakers uniting with ordinary consumers and taxpayers to push for politically contentious changes that will provoke fierce opposition from vested interests.
The Productivity Commission is also right to argue that one of the chief structural problems and inefficiencies is the inadequate chronic disease care delivered outside hospitals, which leads to significant numbers of potentially avoidable hospital admissions at high cost to government budgets.
But this is largely telling us what we already know: innumerable inquiries, reports, and reviews have identified chronic care gaps and the failure to keep people well and out of hospital as the primary health reform issue.
But what solutions are proposed to address this perennial challenge and achieve meaningful change?
The Productivity Commission suggests that 2% to 3% of public hospital budgets should be quarantined to create a special fund that state and federal health bureaucracies can access to test and trial chronic care and other preventive health initiatives in local regions.
However, there have been endless number of similar chronic disease programs and trials that have not seeded lasting change. The obvious reason for this is that trials are just trials.
What health care provider is going to get serious about reinventing their existing profitable business model, when the government ‘investment’ in so-called innovation amounts to a few hundred million dollars out of a Medicare system that currently consumes approximately $75 billion of taxpayer’s money each year?
Overcoming the lack of follow-through that plagues the history of health trials — even ones that deliver ‘promising results’ — is just one of the arguments in favour of the bolder approach to health reform and solving the chronic care puzzle as set out in the CIS Health Innovation Program’s ‘Health Innovation Communities’ proposal.
Home > Commentary > Opinion > Half cheer for PC on health
Half cheer for PC on health
The first is that the current system is not focused on patients and delivering the best health outcomes at the least cost.
The second is the health system is provider-driven and basically operates as a rigid payment mechanism underwriting existing providers’ incomes and models of care — thereby stymieing innovation.
The third is that achieving change depends on governments and policymakers uniting with ordinary consumers and taxpayers to push for politically contentious changes that will provoke fierce opposition from vested interests.
The Productivity Commission is also right to argue that one of the chief structural problems and inefficiencies is the inadequate chronic disease care delivered outside hospitals, which leads to significant numbers of potentially avoidable hospital admissions at high cost to government budgets.
But this is largely telling us what we already know: innumerable inquiries, reports, and reviews have identified chronic care gaps and the failure to keep people well and out of hospital as the primary health reform issue.
But what solutions are proposed to address this perennial challenge and achieve meaningful change?
The Productivity Commission suggests that 2% to 3% of public hospital budgets should be quarantined to create a special fund that state and federal health bureaucracies can access to test and trial chronic care and other preventive health initiatives in local regions.
However, there have been endless number of similar chronic disease programs and trials that have not seeded lasting change. The obvious reason for this is that trials are just trials.
What health care provider is going to get serious about reinventing their existing profitable business model, when the government ‘investment’ in so-called innovation amounts to a few hundred million dollars out of a Medicare system that currently consumes approximately $75 billion of taxpayer’s money each year?
Overcoming the lack of follow-through that plagues the history of health trials — even ones that deliver ‘promising results’ — is just one of the arguments in favour of the bolder approach to health reform and solving the chronic care puzzle as set out in the CIS Health Innovation Program’s ‘Health Innovation Communities’ proposal.
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