2007 is drawing to a close which means, of course, that it’s the season for superlatives. Best and worst lists are as common as Christmas carols this time of year, and today the New York Times has an interesting addition to this December tradition. Alan Greenspan came out with a best-selling memoir this year. Does that win the title of best book of the year? David Leonhardt writing for the Times has something a little more off-beat in mind:
In 1967, Jack Wennberg, a young medical researcher at Johns Hopkins…. traveled around Vermont, visiting its 16 hospitals and collecting data on how often they did various procedures. The results turned out to be quite odd. Vermont has one of the most homogeneous populations in the country — overwhelmingly white (especially in 1967), with relatively similar levels of poverty and education statewide. Yet medical practice across the state varied enormously, for all kinds of care… Here was the stunner: Vermonters who lived in towns with more aggressive care weren’t healthier. They were just getting more health care.
Wennberg repeated his studies around the country and found much the same thing–spending more on health care doesn’t mean the population is any healthier, just poorer. His research is the foundation of a book, “Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer” by Shannon Brownlee, which Leonhardt suggests is a must-read for business people.
Why? Not only does the book diagnose some of the most fundamental problems of the American health care system, it also offers solutions to get better results for less money. And what else is at the heart of management than that- better results for less money. Leonhardt concludes, “I’m going with Ms. Brownlee’s book [for best business book of the year] because it’s the best description I have yet read of a huge economic problem that we know how to solve — but is so often misunderstood.”
(Image of stethoscope by happysnappr, CC 2.0)
