Next Apple is born in the British health care!
Author: Mr Hans DahlgrenPublish Date: 1st January 2012
Next Apple is born in the British health care!
Steve Jobs did for Apple a unique vision that is about inclusion, compared to Microsoft and Google's Android fragmented systems. Job's thesis, which he ran with almost superhuman frenzy was that everything will be integrated - Hardware - Software - experience. We will sell a whole, our users should not have to think about how it should work, how to connect things, or if different parts works together - that we (Apple) do who are experts.
This holistic approach is transferable to health care and we believe it is more important than that! One of the biggest gaps we have in healthcare today is that patients or their relatives themselves have set requirements for the correct investigation or treatment. Or as it is sometimes a bit carelessly said in the vernacular - 'you have to be pretty healthy to cope with being sick'.
Alongside the challenge to raise quality and patient safety in health care, the big question is how we ensure integration with the continuum of care ranges and comprehensive so that the sick, those who are most vulnerable, in itself should have to lie in order not to fall through the cracks when responsibility moves from a health care provider to another.
While integration creates higher quality and efficiency. We do not believe that there is a chance that Apple's concept has been extremely successful and that success depends precisely on the holistic approach and integration.
The answer to the medical challenge is to move away from the organization with a focus on bodies and clinics to encourage health care processes and value chain that is based on a holistic approach with the patient at the center. By working towards an integrated care, we can use our collective resources more efficiently. Here are some important points that need care. To accomplish this required political courage.
• A health system that encourages innovation.
• Increased focus on preventive care.
• Long-term contracts in alternative care choice in more areas of a healthcare provider should dare and be able to hold the investments in the entire continuum of care.
• Incentives for cooperation across borders for the patients' best interests.
• Compensation based on the care process rather than compensation based on action or body treatment.
• Responsibility for the entire continuum of care for each individual caregiver.
The lack of innovation in primary care is clear. With health care providers who take responsibility for the entire continuum of care, innovations will be increasing around the patient. In time we get more effective care chains and reduced costs but above all, we get a holistic view where we see each patient according to its particular needs.
I hope that the British Government will take note of what Steve Jobs did for Apple and develops health care policy with a view crisp proposal with an integrated approach focusing on the patient, efficient value chain and innovation. Then maybe next Apple may be born in the British health care. And the patients in the British health care will have an even better medical care when it is fully integrated around them.
Hans Dahlgren
Business Development Manager at Praktikertjänst AB - Sweden's largest private healthcare provider
