The tragic state of American health care was once again brought to light by How Do We Fix the Scandal That Is American Health Care? in the New York Times.
Nicholas Kristof's article is full of important data on preventable illness, death, and lowered life expectancy in the U.S. This data reveals a system that is broken at all levels and layers.
Kristoff suggests that an expansion in Medicaid will improve access, but Medicaid seldom addresses the personal behavior and lifestyle changes required to improve health and quality of life. The U.S. needs a multi-disciplinary, multi-faceted approach to achieve systemic change across the entire health care ecosystem.
Every role, every stakeholder in the ecosystem, from clinicians to patients, to insurers, administrators, and local and federal governments, is at play here and requires a transformative approach to change. With decades-long human-centered design experience, we absolutely can envision a successful system if the entire health care ecosystem were addressed collaboratively and methodically.
This is something we regularly practice for our clients. Generative Transformation (GT) for entire ecosystems.
Through Generative Transformation, we’re able to uncover systemic inefficiencies, challenges and obstructions to success. Through understanding the entire ecosystem of a client, be it in health care or other industries, we can surmise and detail strategic steps moving forward.
That said, health care has a lot to gain from this approach. It is simply unacceptable that the U.S. health care system fails so many and so often.
We must collectively act now as the health of many U.S. residents deteriorates every day.