Everywhere I look I see people wanting to congratulate, applaud, and help front-line healthcare workers. This applause is wonderful and well-deserved. I also see front-line healthcare workers everywhere raising concerns that there is not enough personal protective equipment to make their jobs safe.
In this video, I thought I would give you some perspective on how these two things can co-exist. How there can be a massive desire to provide everything the front-line healthcare workers need yet not enough equipment getting to the front line?
I have been a lawyer focusing my practice on medical negligence for over 25 years. The changes I have seen in the health care delivery system in that quarter century explain how there is a lack of personal protective equipment getting to the front lines.
I am willing to bet that what I say here will have front-line healthcare workers nodding their heads in agreement and upper-level health care shaking in disagreement. Please, share your comments. Here is the statement I have to make:
The problem with health care delivery in the United States is a cultural problem, and until we fix this cultural problem, too many people are going to continue to die.
The culture of our healthcare industry is that the front-line workers do not feel they are being cared for. Health care is besieged by layer after layer of administration. As the amount of administration has increased, the amount of care the front-line workers feel has decreased. This results in less safe conditions for the frontline workers and more errors and harm to us as patients.
The numbers back this up. In my career, there have been two major studies looking at the number of people dying in the United States from preventable medical errors. The first concluded the number of deaths was around 100,000 per year and the more recent study found that number to be over 250,000. The number of people dying from medical errors continues to increase at an astonishing rate.
During the same time, the percentage of every health care dollar spent on front-line workers has decreased while the percentage spent on administration has increased. The percentage of health care dollars we spend on administration in the United States is the highest in the Western World.
Moreover, while the percentage of every dollar has decreased on front-line workers, the number of patients they must see has increased.
Quite simply, the front-line workers of our healthcare industry are being asked to do more and more with less and less resources.
In the current crisis, it’s like the front-line healthcare workers are soldiers being asked to fight without their bulletproof vests and it is finally getting some attention. They feel rightfully frustrated and we are paying the price for this imbalance with our lives and their lives.
The lack of personal protective equipment getting to the front line is not the problem. It is just the latest symptom of the problem. Until we change the culture and show the front-line workers we really care about them by funding our healthcare system from the bottom up instead of the top down, we will continue to pay the price with our lives, and people like me will continue to try and make things better one case at a time.
I’m making these posts because my why is to make things better. It’s my hope that people watching will take away something that can help them on their journey. If you enjoy the content we are making, please consider commenting or subscribing to our channel. You can find our videos here on our channel or you can find out more about our law firm here on our site. Thanks for reading. Be well and stay safe.