When I write or speak about healthcare transformation, I am often asked why I do not criticize more. Criticize health system leadership. Criticize governmental policies. Criticize burdensome regulations. It’s a long list. Why avoid criticism? The answer is simple. Discerning emerging solutions is much more productive and fun.
We are living during a very interesting period in the history of health care. No doubt, it is a time of great transition. We are passing from one time to another. Transition periods are important, yet they are hard to define because it’s difficult to determine exactly when they start and when they end. To understand the transition healthcare is now experiencing, we must do our best to understand what is on either side of it.
The traditional approach to delivering care has served us well and accomplished great things over the past century. Yet, it is also being overwhelmed by complexity and producing inconsistent quality, unacceptable levels of harm, too much waste and spiraling costs.
The traditional method of delivering care is struggling and another is emerging to take its place. Because the traditional approach has served us well and accomplished great things, we want to believe that the present state will continue forever. Because conditions have changed, this will not happen. We are in need of a new approach. An approach that carries the best of the past forward, yet also addresses present day challenges. It just might be that on the other side of this current transition is potentially a time unmatched by any other in the history of healthcare. Thanks to visionary clinical leaders at institutions across the country, there is growing evidence this is not only possible; it is likely.
Who does the future belong to? If we look closely at other transition periods in history, two groups of people are apparent. The first are what we recognize as critics. They are people whose response to the need for change is criticism. Critics always exist, but in a time of transition they tend to multiply. What do they criticize? They criticize the new, they criticize the change, they criticize the change for being unnecessary or too fast, or they criticize the change for being too slow. They criticize anything and everything. Critics are abundant. The question we should consider is, “Will criticism solve problems?” Typically, it does not. While constructive criticism has its place, it alone is not likely to accomplish much especially when the world is yearning for innovative solutions.
