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Welcome back to the Fixing Healthcare series, “Diving Deep,” which features a robust and probing discussion about some of healthcare’s most deep-seated problems.
In this episode, Dr. Robert Pearl Jeremy Corr talk about two areas of medicine where the existing “rules” seem out of date. The hosts begin with a bizarre norm in healthcare: that technologies must, above anything else, boost the status of the physician. That’s followed by another odd norm: that primary care physicians, the doctors who save the most lives, are among the least-valued in the profession.
For more information on these topics, check out Dr. Pearl’s latest healthcare columns on Forbes and LinkedIn. For listeners interested in show notes, each episode of this series will feature a time-stamped discussion guide (as follows):
[01:07] Why is healthcare the only U.S. industry that has failed to use technology to lower prices or improve quality?
[04:26] Why doesn’t medical technology improve life expectancy?
[06:51] How are patients affected by the rules of health-tech?
[08:58] Which technologies actually benefit patients?
[12:36] What’s the difference between episodic and continuous medical care?
[14:34] Which technology in medicine is most underutilized and undervalued?
[18:37] How do we break the current rule of health-tech?
[20:08] Why are primary care physicians undervalued in healthcare?
[25:24] Can primary care solve our nation’s chronic disease crisis?
[26:26] How do we break the outdated rule of primary care?
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Dr. Robert Pearl is the author of a book about medicine’s invisible yet highly influential physician culture. Check out “Uncaring: How Physician Culture Is Killing Doctors & Patients.” All profits from the book go to Doctors Without Borders.
Fixing Healthcare is a co-production of Dr. Robert Pearl and Jeremy Corr. Subscribe to the show via Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you find podcasts. Join the conversation or suggest a guest by following the show on Twitter and LinkedIn.