Our world is becoming increasingly complex, but coming changes in health care give us the opportunity to mold our future. The challenges we face are increased bureaucratic hurdles, more regulation, pressure to reduce costs and increased demands by sophisticated patients. The future is as bright as we make it – we should be building our future and not be afraid of it. Physicians, and anesthesiologists in particular, need to be at the core of creating the agenda, not reacting to it.
We have three options:
The world is surely changing before our eyes. Look at what has become part of our daily vocabulary: “patient value,” “patient experience,” “population management,” “shared risk,” “bundled payments.” Physicians have a great opportunity to mold a better health care system for patients. Maureen Bisognano, president and CEO of the Institute for Health Care Improvement, said it very well: “It’s a wonderful sign that physicians are...