Assignment: Answer all of the following questions using headers to separate topics.
1. As one learns about all of the wonders of modern technologies, how would you respond (positive or negative, and why) to Dr. Victoria Sweet who wrote: In trying to get control of healthcare costs by emphasizing "efficiency," we've headed down a wrong path. Medicine works best-that is, arrives at the right diagnosis and the right treatment for the least cost-when the doctor has enough time to do a good job, and pays attention not only to the patient but to what's around the patient. Dr. Sweet calls this approach Slow Medicine, and she believes that, put into wider practice, it would be not only more satisfying for patient and doctor, but also less expensive.
2. Consider the involvement of insurance companies, the big business of healthcare, and cost-cutting activities. Explain what you believe is meant by a cardiac patient who, upon meeting his surgeon for the first time prior to surgery, says to the surgeon, "Hello, sir. I'm Mr. John Smith, husband of Mary Smith and father of Jeanette Smith. I'm a carpenter who has built close to 80 new homes over the last 20 years with these two hands. I'm not the heart attack in Room 403." and why.
3. It's been said that true quality improvement is only possible when those involved in the process can be completely honest with one another. In the case of healthcare, when mistakes cause serious pain, suffering, and possibly death, how is true quality improvement possible? When leveraging 6 Sigma, is total honesty really necessary? Explain.
4. Everyone agrees that reading the Electronic Healthcare Records is much easier than the hand-written entries of old, but many complain that too many are focusing too much on the computer screen instead of on the human right in front of them. Is this just lack of skill or training? Is it poor computer system design? Is it just the nature of the transition from the old way to the new? Is patient care suffering because computers and all the displays, alerts, and alarms distract us?