Tag: Berwick

Why Berwick Matters

Mar 12, 2011• 38

By ROBERT WACHTER

Two cover stories in this week’s Time magazine debate a provocative question: Is America in decline?

Both the yes and no arguments are made persuasively, and I found myself on the fence after reading them, perhaps leaning ever-so-slightly toward the “no” side (optimist that I am). Sure, times are tough, but we’ve got the Right Stuff and we’ve bounced up from the mat before.

Then I considered the political fracas over Don Berwick’s appointment as director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and decided to change my vote, sadly. Yes, America is in decline, and this pitiful circus is Exhibit A.

Berwick, as you know, is a brilliant Harvard professor and founding head of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He is also the brains and vision behind most of the important healthcare initiatives of the past generation, from the IOM reports on quality and safety, to “bundles” of evidence-based practices to reduce harm, to the idea of a campaign to promote patient safety.

President Obama’s selection of Berwick to lead CMS last year was inspired. In the face of unassailable evidence of spotty quality and safety, unjustifiable variations in care, and impending insolvency, Medicare has no choice but to transform itself from a “dumb payer” into an organization that promotes excellence in quality, safety and efficiency. There is simply no other person with the deep knowledge of the system and the trust of so many key stakeholders as Don Berwick.

But Berwick’s nomination ran into the buzz saw of Red and Blue politics, with Republicans holding his nomination hostage to their larger concerns about the Affordable Care Act. In the ludicrous debate that ultimately culminated in Obama’s recess appointment of Berwick, the central argument against his nomination was that he had once – gasp – praised the UK’s National Health Service. Interestingly, without mentioning Berwick by name, Fareed Zakaria pointed to this very issue to bolster his “decline” argument in Time:

A crucial aspect of beginning to turn things around would be for the U.S. to make an honest accounting of where it stands and what it can learn from other countries. [But] any politician who dares suggest that the U.S. can learn from – let alone copy – other countries is likely to be denounced instantly. If someone points out that Europe gets better health care at half the cost, that’s dangerously socialist thinking.Continue reading…

Calling Dr. Berwick

Oct 10, 2010• 8

By MARGALIT GUR-ARIE

On April 27, 2004, President George Bush signed Executive Order 13335 establishing the position of the National Health Information Technology Coordinator. Six years, a recession, a change of administration, a couple of major legislations and a multitude of billions of dollars later, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) is finally on the road to delivering on the original vision behind that executive order.

The stated mission of ONCHIT, as reiterated in the HITECH Act, was the creation of a nationwide interoperable health information technology infrastructure that makes pertinent information available at the point of care, improves health care quality and coordination, reduces health care costs and disparities and does all that while protecting privacy and security.

While the 2004 executive order did not go into much operational detail, the HITECH Act provided instruction on the structure and strategy for building the HIT infrastructure. It is interesting to note that the HITECH Act is comprised of two Titles; Title XIII in Division A which outlines the activities expected from ONCHIT and Title IV in Division B which creates the Medicare & Medicaid stimulus incentives to eligible providers. The notorious “Meaningful Use” term appears only in Title IV and only as a prerequisite for stimulus incentives from CMS and is loosely defined by certified technology, electronic prescribing, information exchange and reporting on clinical quality measures.

Additional guidance is provided on the selection of clinical quality measures to be in accordance with Section 1890(a) of the Social Security Act, which awards CMS $10 million every year for contracting development of such measures. Meaningful Use seems a rather benign litmus test for CMS to administer prior to dispersing any stimulus incentives. So why is it that “Meaningful Use” became the defining substance of the ONCHIT mission?

The Accidental Socialists

Aug 30, 2010• 62

By DAVID DRANOVE

Over the next few years, the U.S. healthcare system will be in the hands of academics from Cambridge, Massachusetts. New CMS Czar Donald Berwick was a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty. Joe Newhouse, who has been the senior adviser to Medicare for as long as I can remember, holds appointments in three different schools at Harvard. David Cutler, Dean of Harvard’s Undergraduate College, seems a good bet to lead the Independent Medicare Advisory Board. Countless of their colleagues and former students have taken key policy making positions in Washington.

I know most of these scholars. They are brilliant as a rule and are acting in the truest sense of public service. None of them are socialists in the usual sense of the word; they do not believe that the government is an efficient provider of most goods and services. I don’t think they want the government to provide health care either. They have never called for government ownership of hospitals or suggested that physicians join the civil service. But whether they realize it or not, they are the vanguard of a movement bringing socialized medicine to America.Continue reading…

Can CMS Be a Venture Capitalist?

Jul 26, 2010• 2

By PAUL LEVY

Lisa Suennen, a venture capitalist, writes this post about the provision in the national health care reform act that created the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMI). This agency has $10 billion to “research, develop, test and expand innovative payment and service delivery models that will improve the quality and reduce the costs of care” for patients covered by CMS-related programs. Lisa notes, “What is great about CMI is that they have the authority to run their programs much more like a business would without many historical governmental constraints. ”

I don’t want to be a stick in the mud, particularly as my able friend Don Berwick takes charge of CMS, but I want to point out that previous efforts by the government to be innovative in other fields have failed because:

(1) Venture funding embodies risk-taking. Government usually does not do this because there is a political imperative never to be blamed for misspending taxpayer money. The bureaucracy, therefore, systematically eliminates ideas that are untested.Continue reading…