Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
President Obama has to understand the differences between Taylorism and Disintermediation. He would then understand the difficulties Americans are having with his healthcare reform law.
President Obama must combine the advantages of Taylorism with the advantages of Disintermediation in order to Repair the Healthcare System. The system must be for the benefit of consumers.
The disadvantages of Taylorism combined with central government bureaucracy will destroy healthcare in America.
President Obama’s only concern is to increase centralized government even if America cannot afford it.
Dr. Berwick is the right technocrat for President Obama. Dr. Berwick’s only concern is to convert the practice of medicine and the delivery of medical care to Frederick Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management.
Frederick Taylor published his monograph The Principles of Scientific Management in 1911. Henry Ford utilized Taylor’s concepts in mass producing the automobile.
Taylor believed that decisions based upon tradition and rules of thumb should be replaced by precise procedures developed after careful study of an individual work process. Its application is contingent on a high level of managerial control of the worker.
He stated that central authority must provide detailed instruction and rules to each worker. Managers have to supervise and grade workers in the performance of their tasks. The managers plan the work. The workers actually perform the tasks.
Taylor was convinced that productivity efficiency lies in scientific management, rather than in searching for extraordinary creative workers to perform the work. .
Scientific management commoditizes products and lower cost of production. Medical care should not be a set of algorithms and rules that are centrally dictated. Algorithms should be a guide to help physicians’ with clinical decisions.
The problem with President Obama and Dr. Berwick’s plan is it disregards the role the healthcare industry plays in the inefficiency and cost for healthcare. It disregards the cost and inefficiency created by 160 new bureaucratic agencies to create new rules and regulations. It disregards the waste created by defensive medicine.
Disintermediation is a term used in the “science of economics.” It is the elimination of the intermediaries in a supply chain. Simply put it cuts out the middlemen.
President Obama and Dr. Berwick are not eliminating the biggest middleman with their plan, the healthcare insurance industry.
Michael Dell of Dell Computing and Jeff Bezo of Amazon.com are the masters of disintermediation. They have eliminated the middlemen and revolutionized the computer industry and the publishing industry. Steve Jobs did the same to the music industry with the IPOD and ITUNES.
Consumers are empowered by market transparency. The middlemen were bypassed. Disintermediation has liberated consumers and reduced costs.
Wal-Mart uses the same disintermediation principle with its effective use of information technology. Wal-Mart passes the saving produced by eliminating the middlemen on to consumers. Wall-Mart has revolutionized retailing.
Healthcare reform should include systems of care. It should also include a disintermediation system to bypass the healthcare care insurance industry. Disintermediation in the healthcare system can empower patients to control of their health and healthcare dollars.
President Obama wants to increase quality and decrease the cost of healthcare by increasing the efficiency of healthcare delivery.
Everyone has the same goal. President Obama’s route is wrong.
Our healthcare systems problems can be solved by combining Taylorism with Disintermediation.
This can be achieved with consumer driven healthcare and ideal medical saving accounts.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.
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