December 2009: Where Health Care Succeeds
Written by: Dr. Michael Weiss

Her normally reliable staff has become mistake-prone - overbooking schedules, missing deadlines. Her efforts to retool processes and triple check details have reduced but not eliminated errors. Each morning, she arrives at the office, wondering what mess will need cleaning up today.

Here’s an overdue message to LuAnn and her team: You also do many things well.

Here’s a similar message to Congress: The health care system isn’t broken everywhere. Your attention may be focused on fixing its flaws; but in contemplating reform, you mustn’t diminish its strengths.

Join me in practice for a day, and you’ll know what parts of our system you need to keep.

One of my partners graduated from high school at 16. Another entered medical school after completing his doctorate. They are examples of promising individuals who, possessing the IQ and work ethic to succeed in any field, choose health care for its technical challenges and deeply satisfying rewards.

That such individuals come from every socioeconomic background says much about the openness of our opportunities.

A physician’s path into practice is guided by an educational system that methodically progresses students from classroom fundamentals to the highest realms of critical thinking, and that teaches one to be both technical and personal. Our understanding of medicine advances through ongoing research, much of it conducted in U.S. facilities and funded by U.S. entities. We learn about this research through the world’s best journals, most of which are published by U.S. medical societies.

At work, I am helped by others who you will find also to be well-trained, competent and kind. These include physician assistants, nurses, medical assistants and radiologic technicians, whose combined clinical skills result in attentive care.

You will meet our front desk receptionists, transcriptionists, surgical schedulers and other administrative staff, whose concern for our patients is as real as mine. You will learn that we employ one MBA and two more in training - individuals with other career options who choose to use their talents here.

I will even introduce you to LuAnn and her team. In them, you will see determination that pushes through adversity. Such grit is common in health care.

In our office, you will find clean exam rooms, sterile supplies, thorough medical records and computer monitors that link to sophisticated imaging centers, allowing us to retrieve advanced diagnostic studies with a few clicks of a mouse. You will hear me collaborate with physicians of other specialties, as we pool our training and coordinate care.

In our hospitals - most of which were founded by charities and volunteers - you will walk through operating rooms equipped with monitors, endoscopes and heart-lung machines, all of which are kept in working order by biomedical engineers. On the units, you will watch nurses take vital signs, dispense medications, encourage healing when possible and offer comfort when not.

These facilities and caregivers are the envy of the world. Had you joined me on my medical mission trip to Guatemala in August, you would have met patients who know what a truly flawed system looks like.

In the emergency department back home, you will see providers deliver life-saving treatment to any who need it, regardless of ability to pay. In my community, you will learn that health care isn’t just a problem to be solved. It’s an economic force that creates stable employment and a dutiful presence that enhances the quality of every life.

As you contemplate changes to that force and presence, I encourage you to remember what makes our system great - the completeness of its infrastructure, the momentum of its technology, the access to its facilities and the excellence of its teams.

You have the power to build on that greatness. Your actions can also all too easily erode it.

Proceed with caution. You will have fixed nothing if you turn health care into a place where people no longer choose to work, where progress no longer has the chance to occur and where patients no longer wish to be.

Dr. Weiss is an orthopedic surgeon with Tri Rivers Surgical Associates. He can be reached at (412) 367-0600 or info@tririversortho.com.

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