When Stefan Larsson, MD, went on sabbatical from his job as a management consultant, he returned to the hospital in which he was trained. He found two things: Hospital budgets and cost-cutting were common themes, and his formerly passionate medical school classmates had become cynical, disengaged and distanced from hospital management.
They expressed their discontent with the way they were able to care for patients, saying because of cost considerations, they weren't able to make the choices they believed were right for their patients. This experience led Dr. Larsson to ask an important question in an October 2013 TED talk: "Are we forgetting the patient?"
While Dr. Larsson mentioned trouble with the cost of healthcare is common among many countries, he suggested harnessing the intellectual curiosity and innate compassion of providers through data transparency in pursuit of quality may be a meaningful way to add value to healthcare.
He citied a study of Swedish orthopedists who were discussing hip surgery and realized each had an individual way of operating. After agreeing to measure outcomes and share data, the surgeons discovered a method of implanting hip replacements that saved most patients from ever needing reoperation. The discovery started a continuous cycle of improvement, transforming clinical practice for hip surgery in Sweden and inspiring a yearly physician-sharing event generating a report with which clinicians can benchmark their personal practices. After this revelation, Swedish hip surgeons had the best record for hip surgery in the world for many years, according to Dr. Larsson.
Dr. Larsson believes the processes behind the study — physicians agree what quality is, measure those things, share data, find leaders in procedures and learn from those leaders — are the key to continuous quality improvement. And, he notes, "those who focus on quality already have [the] lowest costs, even if that's not the purpose [of focusing on quality]."
Through investing in nurses and physicians as agents of change, Dr. Larsson believes hospitals can take staff from being a problem to being an important part of the solution in improving outcomes of care. "It can be done and has to be done," he said.
Watch Dr. Larsson's talk on TED's website.
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