Step 1 – Start with what’s true
Before this Conversation took shape, I was pondering the question, “What more is needed to solve the problem of poor health value in America?” As I reflected on potential answers, I ran into this quote from Gus Lee’s book, Courage: The Backbone of Leadership:
“Thus courage – or its absence – determines all outcomes.”
His book convincingly describes the necessary role that courage plays in changing the status quo. Raw courage, as depicted by the lemmings rushing over the cliff, is ineffective. Courage from the grandstands, as illustrated by “The End Is Near” sign, is equally ineffective. What is needed is courage directed by wisdom to recognize what it means to “Do what’s right”, the very definition of leadership proposed by the leadership guru, Warren Bennis.
What I plan to explore in the next four Conversations is the role that courage plays in creating effective change. Such transformational courage may be best defined by highlighting the lives of those who have addressed wrongs and ignited change, including Joan of Arc, Jesus, Buddha, Martin Luther King, Lincoln, and Gandhi.
As these lives illustrate, transformational courage is both collaborative and confrontational respectively as it resonates with our “better angels” and uncovers our greed.
Step 1 – Starting with the truth
Anchoring one’s courage with the truth can prevent lemming-like actions that may be popular, but wrong-headed. To ground us in the truth, here are five facts about health in America:
- The status of our health ranks at the bottom of the developed world.
- Life expectancy is improving at a faster rate in each of the other 34 countries in the OECD compared to the US.
- There are over 100,000 prescription drug deaths from adverse drug reactions annually in the US (this does not include abuse or overdoses).
- Per capita costs of healthcare in the US are over twice that of the rest of the developed world.
- It takes an average of 17 years after the discovery of a new clinical benefit before it becomes the standard of care.
Taken in aggregate, these facts support the inescapable conclusion that health value in the US is failing. There are factors other than healthcare contributing to these poor outcomes, but when we spend a sixth of the economy on healthcare, getting a better bang for those bucks is key to the solution.
This conclusion, along with the quote “… courage – or its absence – determines all outcomes” would suggest that healthcare could benefit from a larger dose of courage.
Tomorrow’s Fix Today™,
Carl
____________________________________________________________________________________
Switch Healthcare designs solutions for self-insured employers.
____________________________________________________________________________________
ALL POSTS:
Edition 1 – Solving a Well-Entrenched Problem
Edition 2 – A Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Edition 3 – Best marketing tagline of all time?
Edition 4 – Post-Truth Killed a President
Edition 5 – What’s an employer to do?
Edition 6 – Profiting From the Opioid Epidemic
Edition 7 – The Keys to Unlocking Better Decisions
Edition 8 – When Difficult Things Need to be Done Well
Edition 9 – Fixing Healthcare
Edition 10 – Beware of a Singing Cow
Edition 11 – Wise Reflections
Edition 12 – Warning: Reader Discretion Advised
Edition 13 – Can AI save healthcare? (Part 1)
Edition 14 – Can AI save healthcare? (Part 2)
Edition 15 – Can AI save healthcare? (Part 3)
Edition 16 – Embracing Reality to Improve Healthcare
Edition 17 – Everything I Needed To Know…
Edition 18 – The Eighth Circle of Hell
Edition 19 – So… What’s Our Solution?
Edition 20 – Protecting Integrity as a Core Strategy
Edition 21 – An Unadorned Legacy
Edition 22 – Time to Grow Up
Edition 23 – Against All Odds
Edition 24 – When Everyone Has Stopped Listening
Edition 25 – Focusing on What’s Important
Edition 26 – Don’t Give Up Your Shot
Edition 27 – Join the Goodhood
Edition 28 – Fixing Healthcare (Recycled)
Edition 29 – Taming the Healthcare Beast
Edition 30 – Leadership
Edition 31 – Better Health Requires Good Sense
Edition 32 – Little Decisions With Big Consequences
Edition 33 – Transformational Courage
Edition 34 – Transformational Courage – Part 2
Guest Post – Happy Thanksgiving! By Jeff Novick, RD
Edition 35 – Transformational Courage – Part 3
