Where Does It Hurt?, Stephen Baker
Where Does It Hurt?, Stephen Baker
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Where Does It Hurt?
An Entrepreneur's Guide to Fixing Health Care

Author: Stephen Baker, Jonathan Bush

Narrator: Patrick Lawlor

Unabridged: 7 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ascent Audio

Published: 06/01/2014


Synopsis

A bold new remedy for the sprawling and wasteful health care industry

Where else but the doctor’s office do you have to fill out a form on a clipboard? Have you noticed that hospital bills are almost unintelligible, except for the absurdly high dollar amount? Why is it that technology in other industries drives prices down, but in health care it’s the reverse? And why, in health care, is the customer so often treated as a mere bystander—and an ignorant one at that?

The same American medical establishment that saves lives and performs wondrous miracles is also a $2.7 trillion industry in deep dysfunction. And now, with the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), it is called on to extend full benefits to tens of millions of newly insured. You might think that this would leave us with a bleak choice— either to devote more of our national budget to health care or to make do with less of it. But there’s another path.

In this provocative book, Jonathan Bush, cofounder and CEO of athenahealth, calls for a revolution in health care to give customers more choices, freedom, power, and information, and at far lower prices. With humor and a tell-it-likeit- is style, he picks up insights and ideas from his days as an ambulance driver in New Orleans, an army medic, and an entrepreneur launching a birthing start-up in San Diego. In struggling to save that dying business, Bush’s team created a software program that eventually became athenahealth, a cloud-based services company that handles electronic medical records, billing, and patient communications for more than fifty thousand medical providers nationwide.

You’ll learn how:
• Well-intended government regulations prop up overpriced incumbents and slow the pace of innovation.
• Focused, profit-driven disrupters are chipping away at the dominance of hospitals by offering routine procedures at lower cost.
• Scrappy digital start-ups are equipping providers and patients with new apps and technologies to access medical data and take control of care.
• Making informed choices about the care we receive and pay for will enable a more humane and satisfying health care system to emerge.

Bush’s plan calls for Americans not only to demand more from providers but also to accept more responsibility for our health, to weigh risks and make hard choices—in short, to take back control of an industry that is central to our lives and our economy.

About Stephen Baker

Stephan Baker has written for many publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and Philadelphia Inquirer. He won an Overseas Press Club Award for his portrait of the rising Mexican auto industry. He is the coauthor of Blogspotting.net, featured as one of fifty blogs to watch by the New York Times.


Reviews

The author has no doubts about his vision for healthcare - he suggests more competition and less governmental influence. "Greed is Good" echoes bush; effective healthcare can only be made possible by letting healthcare - a nearly monopolized business into something like a restaurant business, where......more

Goodreads review by Dave

A really eye opening perspective on what is at stake in considering the different philosophies on interoperability in healthcare IT. Also a good commentary on the need for disruption in an industry that consumes almost one out of five dollars generated in the country's GDP and how the industry can b......more

Goodreads review by Sharron

The introduction is so impressive, it's very engaging. The rest of the book doesn't hold up. By the time you get towards the end he has ridiculous suggestions. He proves to be out of touch with the realities of people's financial choices.......more

Goodreads review by Joel

Easy to read, right in so many ways, but wrong in the market fixes all conclusion.......more