Got a chance this week to spend some time with a wonderful person, Susan Wentz, MD MS, at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She’s a very insightful person when it comes to many things, especially healthcare. I mention her because she gets credit for this initial analogy. I just took it a bit further and blogged it.
Susan and I had made arrangements to meet at her office. Her colleague, Catherine, gave us directions on how to get there. Two paragraphs of directions she gave us. And not concise paragraphs. Katrina and I found it a bit amusing at first, until we arrived on campus. We needed every word of the two paragraphs which basically ended up depositing us at the door marked Visitors Entrance. From there, we were to call, and Susan would come get us. Thank goodness she did!
If you’ve ever been on a hospital campus, you know the frustration of trying to find your way around. You can literally be on one floor of the building and not be able to get to another area on the same floor without going back down to the lobby, changing elevator banks, asking directions from the desk once more to be sure you have not lost you mind, riding up a different elevator bank, and latching onto a poor sole who takes pity upon you when they see that lost look on your face.
You know the medical campus. It started out as a couple of buildings. Over time, another one got built in between. And then they joined two of the buildings by putting another building in between. They tore down a bit of another, but that was so they could join up the one that hadn’t been assimilated just yet. And then they acquired that old grocery store property that had been on the corner and built another facility. Ooh, wouldn’t a skybridge be cool – like a tentacle stretching across the street! The elevation is a bit different between floors, but it’ll be OK if the bridge goes from the 3rd floor on one side to the 4th floor on the other. This skybridge thing is IT! Let’s do more – like an octopus! And now you can’t get to the clinic the same way you got there the last time. Sure the facades of the original buildings still peek out in spots, but this is no longer the hospital you knew. I mean, how many helipads do they really need? You have to wonder why they don’t just tear the whole damned thing down and start over clean.
Maybe that’s what they should do.
And that’s what our healthcare insurance system has become – a giant, bloated, overbearing, seething mass of non-matching additions, expansions and non-compatible renovations. Navigating the healthcare system has become as difficult as navigating the hospital hallways. There are dead ends. Delays. Confusion. Frustration. There are exorbitant costs. Huge expenses that no one seems overly concerned about trying to control. There’s no one there to help guide you. You literally wind up looking for someone who seems to have the same ailment as you and see if they’ve figured out how to navigate things so that they can help you. The healthcare system and the healthcare facility have developed in an ironically parallel fashion. You have to wonder why they don’t just tear the whole damned thing down and start over clean.
Maybe that’s what they should do.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Robert,
I don’t know if they should tear it down, but rather reform our nation’s Healthcare System.
RxPop.com features some cool videos of politicians speaking out on the Healthcare Crisis in the United States.
RxPop has even tied into a ProjectVoteSmart.com API.
Check out the videos at:
http://www.rxpop.com/politics.asp
Want healthcare? GET A JOB. I am sick and tired of you liberal losers whining that those of us who work should pay for your helthcare. You all fake your illnesses to get out of work because like all liberals you are lazy. GET A JOB you lazy bum liberal moonbats. Hellary KLINTON will not save you.
Jim,
I do agree with your point that way too many individuals in the United States are just plain lazy. However, when taking Healthcare Reform into consideration you must look outside your own age range and demographic. What about seniors without family and funds? With alzhiemer’s disease affecting more and more of our seniors and the cost of medications on the rise, it’s really our unattended seniors we should be concerned with!