Synopses & Reviews
Best Care Anywhere, 2nd Edition demonstrates how an ongoing quality revolution in the nation’s veterans hospitals provides deep lessons for reforming the U.S. health care system as a whole. The new edition is particularly timely with the winding down of the national debate over health care insurance reform, which will necessarily shift focus of reform to the practice of medicine itself. The VA, by making extensive use of electronic medical records and evidence-based medicine, has developed a model of 21st century health care that boosts safety, cost effectiveness, and patient satisfaction. And in so doing, it has proven that most of we think we know about health care is just wrong.
New to this edition:
• Discussion of vast changes in health care politics since 2007, and how the VA model of care fits in.
• New insights on how the VA model will shape 21st century health care.
• How Bush administration policies undermined many successful aspects of VA health care, and how the Obama administration is beginning to put matter right for our wounded warriors.
• Updated coverage of federal information technology initiatives in health care, and the lessons provided by the VA’s “open source” software development.
* New information on the continuing consequences of exposure to Agent Orange, and its deeper implications for rethinking who should have access to VA care.
* A proposal for rolling out a new civilian version of the VA that now has gained political viability in light of the overall failure of other approaches to health care reform. A civilian VA is a true “public option” in health care for which Progressives and other Americans must rally.
Synopsis
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 health care leads to more expensive, less comprehensive, and less effective health care.
New to this edition:
- Discussion of vast changes in health care politics since 2007.
- New insights on how the VA model will shape 21st century health care.
- How Bush administration policies undermined the most successful aspects of VA health care.
- Updated coverage of federal information technology initiatives in health care, thanks in part to the success of the VA model in that area.
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.
Synopsis
"Best Care Anywhere" uses the Veterans Administration's successes to illustrate deeper lessons for the U.S. health care system. In particular, this work shows how fee-for-service health care leads to more expensive, less comprehensive, and less effective health care.
About the Author
Phillip Longman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of numerous articles and books on health care, demographics, and public policy. His most recent book, The Next Progressive Era, was published by PoliPointPress in April 2009. He is also the author of The Empty Cradle, published by Basic Books in March 2004. The book examines how the rapid yet uneven fall in birth rates around the globe is affecting the evolution of culture and politics.
Mr. Longman is also the author of Born to Pay: The New Politics of Aging in America (1987) and The Return of Thrift: How the Collapse of the Middle Class Welfare State Will Reawaken Values in America (1996). Mr. Longman’s work has appeared in the Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Harvard Business Review, the New Republic, the New York Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Monthly, the Washington Post, and the Wilson Quarterly.
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, MSNBC, the BBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Der Spiegel, and many others. Formerly a senior writer and deputy assistant managing editor at U.S. News & World Report, 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
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: Battle Plan
Epilogue