The Local Garage and Surgical Transparency....

A short blog….

My mother had a pacemaker put in yesterday.  I called her to see how she was doing, and in the course of the conversation I asked her what kind of pacemaker she had implanted.

She had no idea.

That is disgraceful.  

Hospitals for the most part do a great job on patient care and working hard to improve outcomes.  The US healthcare system is by many standards the best in the world.  They fall short, however in one important area:  transparency.  

Whether its cost of care, costs of supplies, or tracking carefully what is placed inside your body during surgery, the hospital system is plagued by opacity.  Whether this is by design or not, this lack of transparency to its customers directly impacts accountability and indirectly impacts quality.  

As a patient you are a paying customer of wherever you receive your healthcare.  Would you expect to get a bill for an auto repair and not get a detailed record of what they put in your car?  Why do we simply accept that what is placed in our bodies during surgery should be a mystery and the remain known only to the medical Gods?

Patients should demand more transparency in their healthcare.  God knows we all pay dearly for it.  Demand better, as it will only improve the accountability and quality of what you pay for.

It is time for the surgical suite to put Scan in the Plan and capture all product usage during surgery at the point of use, and provide this information to patients.

End of blog.