Wednesday, August 8, 2007

SICKO; Problems Being Solved

Michael Moore’s
SICKO Problems Being Solved






“If ever there was an idea whose time has come, this is the idea and this is the time.” -- Cal Thomas syndicated columnist


“…a documentary about healthcare that makes it an opportunity rather than a problem or a crisis,” - Sander Vanocur.

Good News…How Hospitals Heal Themselves
is a PBS documentary about using “Toyota” production methods to make hospitals safer and health care more affordable. It has generated intense viewer responses, international interest, and excellent reviews and it also answers the concerns raised by Michael Moore’s SICKO.

Good News, hosted by Lloyd Dobyns, clearly outlines how to reduce escalating costs, unnecessary deaths, and waste in America’s hospitals. Doctors and nurses tell how they did their best—working overtime—while hospital conditions worsened. They were initially dubious and then delighted to learn a new way—systems thinking— to improve patient care dramatically and reduce unnecessary deaths, suffering, errors, infections and costs without additional r
esources or government regulations.

Complexity and Blame
The surprising and significant lesson from the documentary broadcast is that most health professionals don’t know how to view modern, complex healthcare delivery as a process. That means they can’t understand that more effective healthcare requires that the hospital be managed as a system, problems identified and continual improvement practiced to eliminate waste and errors.

The media, the healthcare industry and the politicians are locked into the dramatic, single event anecdote. and, of course, blame. Blame defeats learning and improvement and the unnecessary deaths, suffering and waste continue to multiply because of increasing complexity and change. The documentary explains that “doing your best” without systems knowledge almost always makes situations worse in the modern world.

It reports how to avoid hospital infections. The Center for Disease Control predicts that one of every 22 patients will get an avoidable infection this year and
cost hospitals billions of dollars in un-reimbursed costs to treat them. Dr. Richard P. Shannon, who eliminates infections at a Pittsburgh hospital in the documentary, told the New York Times that the average infection costs a hospital an un-reimbursed $27,000. The healthcare industry needs to be educated about managing complex social systems. Policymakers and politicians need to understand that extending health insurance coverage will make care more expensive unless local hospitals begin to improve. Our national hospital system unnecessarily allows a jet load of patients to die each day.

The Need
This has been a pro-bono project by the producers, writers, cameraman and talent, who have reported these ideas for more than 25 years, helping many organizations begin to apply them.

More funds are needed to help PBS stations promote and feature the
documentary in prime time, particularly in major cities.

Another approach would be to distribute the companion book and documentary to the more than 6000 hospitals across the country so the administration, staff and board could see local possibilities for improvement.

Benefits

Distributing/airing this program would help hospitals:

• Pioneer more efficient and effective health care.
• Demonstrate that the spiraling cost of health care, hospital-acquired infections and errors result from inadequate and antiquated management methods.
• Learn that the real cost of universal healthcare coverage can be paid by making present health care delivery more efficient and effective.

Washington Post critic Tom Shales wrote about the film:
"Good News: How Hospitals Can Heal Themselves" more than lives up to its title.
Overflowing with fascinating facts and enlightening anecdotes, this public-TV documentary about the much-discussed topic of health care in America goes where more TV journalism should go: beyond stating that potentially crippling problems exist and into the realm of how they can be corrected and catastrophe avoided. Host-writer Lloyd Dobyns and producer Clare Crawford-Mason take viewers on a tour of hospital nightmares that shows how intelligent thinking, systematically applied, can save time, save stress, and save lives. Potentially daunting subjects like not-so-comical nosocomial infections, Toyota's "five why's" approach to problem solving and dizzily spiraling health-care costs are made understandable; Dobyns' straightforward, no-nonsense presentation always clarifies and never confuses.


“(It is about) improving the odds for everybody who'll ever find themselves where they may least want to be: in a hospital hoping they don't come out sicker than when they went in. "Good News" really is good news, and good work as well.”

Viewer Reactions


Linda Sue Johnson of Lake Villa, Illinois believes her mother died from a hospital-acquired infection. After seeing Good News on PBS, she confronted the hospital’s administrators: They could view the documentary and begin quality improvement measures or she would bring suit for medical malpractice. She reports that the hospital’s risk manager has begun to show the documentary to staff and that the hospital is “already changing over to [systems thinking and process improvement] explained in the documentary.


Jim Duffy of the Dundee Scotland Community Health Partnership reported,
“The program provides great examples of how systems thinking delivers for the patient. It shows that concentrating on the patient is the way to improve services,
patient care, and to improve staff morale. The program is not challenging to watch – it is fascinating. But it is very challenging to think about the issues it raises. It has certainly made people wonder, “If it can happen in St. Joseph’s Hospital, (in America) why can’t it happen in Scottish hospitals?”

The Scottish National Health Service is now using the documentary and companion book throughout its health systems. And representatives of the Scottish government have formed a committee to investigate how to adopt these ideas across the government and in schools. Their purpose is that Scotland would become the first continual learning country.

Finney Mathew of Oklahoma City called to purchase a copy for his boss. He did not work for a hospital and was not in charge of training for his company. He was only a “wrench” (a mechanic) in his words who works for a car dealer. He saw the program and knew that his organization needed the same improvement principles being applied in hospitals.

Good Citizen Retiree Spreads the Word
Thomas Delehanty in Alton, Illinois, a retired postal worker, volunteers for hospice service in several hospitals. He purchased 12 copies of Good News so he could give one to each hospital in his county.

University Health Study
A committee of the University of Michigan is testing the documentary and book as a training tool in its health science programs according to regent Donald
Petersen, retired CEO of Ford Motor Company.

Hospital Trains with Good News…

Pardee Memorial Hospital in Hendersonville, NC
, ordered 80 copies of The Nun and the Bureaucrat… for study by their staff members. Many other hospitals are using it to educate personnel. To date, 149 health organizations in 34 states have ordered copies. It has not yet been aired in a number of states.


Prof. Ralph F. Mullin of Central Missouri State University has redesigned his
Design and Management of Quality Systems course to begin with the documentary and companion book, The Nun and The Bureaucrat: How They Found an Unlikely Cure for a America’s Sick Hospitals. “The students believe this book will best capture students' attention and excitement about learning systems thinking and design and transformation (implementation) of quality systems, he said.

Kevin Gilson is using the documentary in the Howard County, Md. Public School Career Academy to teach students and teachers about the cost of process of quality, problem solving and quality concepts. “The documentary provides real information to the students about what they might encounter in their internships
and how systems thinking has helped other organizations improve the quality of healthcare.” Other teachers are planning to use it next year.

They are learning what Toyota executives explain when asked what they do, “We are not in the business of making cars; we are in the business of making cars better.” Or in the case of hospitals, of taking better care of patients.

The Complaints?
Spokesmen for two national associations of hospitals and hospital executives said they didn’t like the documentary. It reported too many problems in
hospitals, they said, and their members would find nothing new. They knew about fixing hospitals.

Actions You Can Take

• Call your Public Television Station for a broadcast date.
• Check managementwisdom.com for a free discussion guide to the documentary and chapters of the companion book.
• Circulate this information to doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, patients, potential patients, members of hospitals boards, foundations, policy makers, people interested in reforming healthcare delivery, etc. etc.



To Order the DVD


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