The Economic Rationale For Sustainable Change For The Healthcare System:
Raymond Rupert MD, MBA patient advocate
This week, the St Michael’s Hospital Foundation in downtown Toronto announced the Humancare initiative. The goal is to raise CDN$1B to change the patient’s experience within Canada. This is an attempt to raise CDN$1B. No guarantees about the fund raising nor about the implementation plan for industry wide change.
And if the model required to sustain the change is defined and is economically rational then it would likely will be unlawful. Thus negating any plan for scalable change to the patient experience.
At the same time, Telus announced that it will spend CDN$54B by 2024 on expanding and improving their network. The dollars are committed. The plan to implement is real. There is a sustainable business model and monetization model in place. It is going to happen.
By comparing these two plans for big change, it is easy to see the folly in attempting to change the patient experience for all Canadians with only CDN$1B of tentative funding without any model for sustaining and scaling the change.
The numbers should be reversed. To goal of transforming the Canadian healthcare system to improve the patient experience would benefit from a minimum of CDN$54B. That would be a good start, but only a start. There is likely an infrastructure deficit of over CDN$500B required to update our healthcare system in order to improve the patient experience and stop the suffering of patients and their families.
Only the private sector can scale up system wide changes and sustain them. That is what Michael Porter has taught us in his work at Harvard.
The Foundation at St Michaels is well intentioned. The board has very clever individuals who are aware of the mess that many patients find themselves in because the system is not a system. The problem is that their change process which is desperately needed will not be scalable and not be sustainable.
In order to get the show on the road and to make a difference in the daily lives of patients whose suffering is real, there has to be a highly motivated private sector consortium including the insurance industry, the banking sector and the infrastructure industry fully funded using private public partnerships and new business models and new monetization models to change the patient experience for Canadians.
And the health sector regulators have to be encouraged by the policy makers to allow change to evolve or patients will continue to suffer because the system does not meet their needs for timely quality care.
We will be pleased to join that conversation. We welcome the call. 647 350 5500.