Michael Rohwer

Opinion: Re-think Community To Address Social Determinants Of Health

If we want healthier communities that spend less on medical care, we need more effective community-based management and intervention, and better communication between the social services and medical communities.

In recent years, social determinants of health have become central to conversations about health-care delivery, and with good reason: medically complex patients and those with unmet behavioral and social needs consume a disproportionate amount of time and money in the health-care system.

By: 
Michael Rohwer

The future we need, want, and can have—if we act soon

As this series concludes, Dr. Michael Rohwer explains the characteristics of a healthcare system grown using the model of a Complex Adaptive System.

OPINION- This series has been about the underlying reasons why healthcare cost is out of control while quality underperforms expectation. As noted many times, our expensive system is the result of how we have viewed the problem.

By: 
Michael Rohwer

Long-term Success Requires Re-examining our Beliefs about How Things Work

With a view to solving rather than compounding the problems of managing healthcare, Dr. Michael Rohwer explains how inappropriate models have brought us to our current unsustainable position and will continue to produce unsustainable cost increases.

OPINION-- In facilitating the business of healthcare, I see many good things happening. The Oregon CCO experiment is on the right path. Electronic Health Records now provide critical infrastructure and we are starting to see new payment models. Universal health insurance coverage is improving.

By: 
Michael Rohwer

Complexity and Price Controls: A Bad Idea that Just Doesn’t Get Better

Managing healthcare with traditional methods is not working for us. Understanding the nature of the beast—healthcare as a Complex Adaptive System--is intrinsic to optimal productivity and real reform. In this seventh article, Dr. Michael Rohwer discusses the contribution of current payment methods to the problems we face in creating a viable future for healthcare, and addresses a first step in growing a sustainable and higher-performance system.

Changing a large and entrenched system like healthcare is difficult. The first step must be to introduce a transformational agent that is immediately useful.

By: 
Michael Rohwer

Community Value Systems create a working focus on results

In this article, the seventh in the series on reducing healthcare cost while improving quality, Dr. Michael Rohwer explains the role of the Community Value System (CVS) in fulfilling the purpose of healthcare.

OPINION- Perhaps a brief summary of some key points from past articles would be a good way to begin. Here goes.

By: 
Michael Rohwer

Communities are the new centers of innovation and learning

In this article, Dr. Michael Rohwer’s fifth in a series that examines healthcare as a Complex Adaptive System, he describes the first of two key innovations necessary to radically improve care while lowering cost.

OPINION- We will not reinvent the wheel. The core management problems we face happen everywhere people work together to accomplish large objectives.

By: 
Michael Rohwer

Communities are the New Centers of Innovation and Learning

In this article, Dr. Michael Rohwer’s fifth in a series that examines healthcare as a Complex Adaptive System, he describes the first of two key innovations necessary to radically improve care while lowering cost.

OPINION- We will not reinvent the wheel. The core management problems we face happen everywhere people work together to accomplish large objectives.

By: 
Michael Rohwer

Healthcare and Purpose-Driven Management

In this fourth installment, Michael Rohwer gives a high-level view of management concepts better suited to the nature of the Complex Adaptive System we call healthcare—a necessary perspective if we are to avoid collapse.

OPINION- Earlier I explained how the nature of Complexity causes our best initiatives to go sideways when managed from the top down.

By: 
Michael Rohwer

Stepping Back from the Brink: Time to Rethink Healthcare Reform

In this third installment, Michael Rohwer argues that we in healthcare are creating our problems and that Complexity, far from being the enemy, is an ally. Within its natural forces lie the engines of productivity and the conductor of change.

OPINION-- I wrote previously about the unsustainable way the healthcare system is managed. Then I provided examples of how emergent behaviors grow out of complex processes to undermine our best efforts.

By: 
Michael Rohwer
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