Let’s face it - the healthcare system is broken. It will never be fixed unless we fundamentally redesign our industry towards a more consumer-centric model. That will require courageous leadership, and our guest this week provides "the path of hope for human-centered care delivery".  Leaders must overcome the cultural malaise that has been formed after years  being conditioned by the current model. We know that our healthcare system causes 200-400k avoidable deaths each year (which is like having two or three jumbo jets crashing every single day), however, we’ve become desensitized to the consequences of our flawed model for delivering care. Each and everyone in the system bears responsibility for other people’s lives and has a role to play in reimagining the future of healthcare. We clearly need urgency for change.

Dr. Zeev Neuwirth is the author of “Reframing Healthcare: A Roadmap For Creating Disruptive Change” and produces and hosts the popular podcast series, “Creating a New Healthcare.” He is currently serving as Atrium Health’s Chief Clinical Executive.Dr. Neuwirth is reorienting the way individuals and organizations think about healthcare, to catalyze movement towards an affordable, accessible, effective and safe healthcare system.His ultimate goal is to humanize healthcare for those who serve within the system, and especially for those who are served by the system.

Episode Bookmarks:

03:15 Referencing Dr. Neuwirth’s book:  “Reframing Healthcare: A Roadmap for Creating Disruptive Change”

06:30 The challenges of practicing medicine in the pandemic era and recognition of those on the frontlines of care delivery

08:20 A shift in focus from Internal Medicine to care redesign, human-centered care delivery, and process improvement

08:50 Dr. Neuwirth explains his passion in seeking out people who are making a difference

09:40 “Creating a path of hope for health care delivery” by providing a platform for those transforming healthcare

11:30 “Health care transformation is already happening across the country. It’s just a matter of aligning payment to it.”

12:30 “Are we collectively ready to have the courage to change a system in fundamental ways? The answer is YES or NO – there is no in-between.”

13:00 The catalyst for Dr. Neuwirth’s work in health care transformation started twenty-five years ago (seeing the “inhumane” system).

15:00 “You cannot improve this system.  You actually have to reframe it.”

16:00 Dr. Neuwirth explains how his mother died from a completely preventable hospital-acquired infection

18:00 Avoidable deaths due to medical errors happen to over 400,000 families a year!

18:30 Dr. Neuwirth discusses the human tragedy of a close friend and physician colleague who committed suicide

19:45 “I am going to go down fighting against a system that strips the humanity out of every single person who tries to do the best they can to help their fellow man.”

21:00 Dr. Neuwirth’s déjà vu “Groundhog Day” moment realizing that we keep talking about the same answers (but the system never changes)

22:30 “Technology is an enabler – no question about it.  But it is not the transformative thing needed to create a new orientation.”

26:30 Courageous leadership to re-instill humanism in health care sometimes requires people to make sacrifices in their career.

27:20 “The people are not the problem in health care…the system is.”

28:00 “If there is an evil in health care, it is the fee-for-service payment model.”

29:00 When piecemeal payment and patient churning ultimately becomes the key performance indicator -- choosing to leave or live with it!