Synopses & Reviews
NEW EDITION, REVISED AND UPDATEDA Model for Health-Care Reform
Phillip Longman tells the amazing story of the turnaround of the Department of Veterans Affairs health-care system from a dysfunctional, scandal-prone bureaucracy into the benchmark for high-quality medicine in the United States. Best Care Anywhere shows that vast swaths of what we think we know about health, health care, and medical economics are just plain wrong. And the book demonstrates how this extraordinarily cost-effective model, which has proven to be highly popular with veterans, can be made available to everyone. New to this edition is an analysis of how the shortcomings of both so-called Obamacare and Republican plans to privatize Medicare reinforce the need for applying the lessons of the VA. Also included are completely updated statistics and research, as well as examples of how the private sector is already beginning to learn from the VA’s example.
“This important book describes the turnaround of the VA health-care system—now widely recognized as leading the nation in terms of both quality and costs—and offers insights that will be useful to patients and policymakers alike.”
—Elliot S. Fisher, MD, Professor of Medicine and Professor of Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School
“The improvement of the VA health-care system in the past decade is one of the most impressive stories of large-scale change—and the leadership thereof—in modern times. Students of quality improvement will find lesson after lesson in this important case study.”
—Donald Berwick, MD, MPP, Professor, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, and former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
“Phillip Longman has uncovered the biggest untold medical story of the last decade.”
—Paul Glastris, Editor in Chief, Washington Monthly
“Longman’s book is a beacon of hope.”
—Theodore Marmor, Professor Emeritus of Public Policy and Management and Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Yale University
Synopsis
Once denigrated for shoddy care and antiquated systems, the VA health system has become a hallmark of excellence and technical innovation. Best Care Anywhere uses the VA turnaround to illustrate deeper lessons for the U.S. health care system. In particular, it shows how fee-for-service healthcare leads to more expensive, less comprehensive, and less effective healthcare. Takeaway: efficient electronic medical records are the secret key to better health outcomes.
New to this edition is a particular focus on the trials and tribulations of "Obamacare," the Ryan proposal, and the fiscal crisis. It also includes new success stories of "exporting" the VA VistA system in West Virginia and Texas as well as completely updated statistics and research, including 2011 cancer studies by Harvard University that prove VA cancer patients outlive cancer patients in traditional healthcare.
Synopsis
Phillip Longman tells the amazing story of the turnaround of the Department of Veterans Affairs health-care system from a dysfunctional, scandal-prone bureaucracy into the benchmark for high-quality medicine in the United States. Best Care Anywhere shows that vast swaths of what we think we know about health, health care, and medical economics are just plain wrong. And the book demonstrates how this extraordinarily cost-effective model, which has proven to be highly popular with veterans, can be made available to everyone. New to this edition is an analysis of how the shortcomings of both so-called Obamacare and Republican plans to privatize Medicare reinforce the need for applying the lessons of the VA. Also included are completely updated statistics and research, as well as examples of how the private sector is already beginning to learn from the VA's example.
About the Author
Phillip Longman is the Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow at Washington Monthly Magazine. He was previously senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and is the author of numerous articles and books on health care, demographics, and public policy. Mr. Longman’s work has appeared in the Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Harvard Business Review, the New Republic, the New York Times Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. He is a frequent public speaker, including addresses to the National War College, the Department of Health and Human Services, PopTech, and Fortune Magazine’s annual “Brainstorm” conference. He is also frequently interviewed by both foreign and domestic media, including National Public Radio and MSNBC. He has won numerous awards for his business and financial writing, including UCLA’s Gerald Loeb Award and the top prize for investigative journalism from Investigative Reporters and Editors.
Table of Contents
Preface to the Third Edition
Introduction
Chapter 1: Best Care Anywhere
Chapter 2: Hitting Bottom
Chapter 3: Revenge of the Hard Hats
Chapter 4: VistA in Action
Chapter 5: The Kizer Revolution
Chapter 6: Safety First
Chapter 7: Who Cares about Quality?
Chapter 8: When Less Is More
Chapter 9: Open-Source Medicine
Chapter 10: The Electronic Medical Records Movement
Chapter 11: Growing the VA
Chapter 12: The Vista Life Network
Epilogue