Eric Dishman Ted Talk Analysis

Amber Dixon
Eric Dishman’s Ted talk was very inspiring, especially for me, a person who is going into the health care field. The public health system he discusses in the video is so innovative and important when thinking about the future of healthcare. He talks about the three pillars that make up this system: care anywhere, care networking and care customization and of these three I think the most profound pillar is care networking. However, all of the pillars he discusses are important when making a big change in health care and improving the access, quality and cost of health care.
Care anywhere is a new way to look at health care and Eric Dishman really sheds some light on the importance of this idea. I have never taken the time to stop and think about this idea, but now that Dishman brings it up I wonder why we don’t already have this, because technology has come so far that, that isn’t what is holding us back from achieving this goal. Dishman

demonstrates on stage how easy it would be for this idea to be implemented, yet it isn’t. It’s odd because there are such devices that are portable, yet no one tries to use these devices for patient benefits, they only think about how much health care facilities would pay for them. In order for health care to improve, care anywhere should be implemented, but first people need to change their attitudes of how they will benefit and instead think of how others will benefit. I think the best way to implement this is idea, is to make facilities that have equipment for patients to use themselves and monitors for them to interact with doctors, but if the patient didn’t need to use equipment then, they could just use their home computers.
The future of health care would benefit tremendously from this idea of care anywhere, because it would help increase the access to healthcare, because it would save doctors time, allowing them to interact with more patients faster. Also, it would improve the access to health care because people could do it anywhere and wouldn’t have to find transportation. Another benefit from this pillar is that there would be more room in hospitals for people who had emergencies that needed direct interaction with the doctor which would get rid of patients waiting for a room to become available, making care more accessible in emergency situations. Patients would also be able to get care around the clock, because the system could be set up where there is a doctor available 24/7 (from the comfort of his home) to skype patients and direct them on what they should do to properly examine them.
Not only would it increase the access to care, but it would also increase the quality of care the patient receives. It would achieve this by requiring less patients to go to hospitals and decrease their risk of obtaining hospital acquired illnesses. It would also increase the amount of time patients get with the doctor, because they wouldn’t necessarily have to stay within the time constraints as they would if they made an appointment. They especially would have more time with the doctor if there were a few doctors that only dealt with this care anywhere concept. Also, patients would be able to have better quality care because they would be able to have more access to doctors that are specialists without having to travel to their facilities that may be very far away.
Care anywhere would also keep care facilities and patient costs to a minimum. It would accomplish this by decreasing travel costs by not requiring patients to travel to multiple facilities to receive the care they need. It would also save care facilities money by not decreasing the rooms needed for patients. Another way it would save patients money is by giving patients more access to specialists which could reduce unnecessary treatment costs that not specialized doctors may recommend.
The second pillar of the person health care system Dishman discusses is care networking and to me is the most important in the future of health care.

His story of how they thought he had a heart problem, but it really was just a communication problem is baffling, however, it is not uncommon. “About 80% of all serious medical errors involve miscommunication during care transitions (to different care settings)” (Govette, 2016). Health care facilities always talk about how working as a team and communication is important to the facilities success, but it is often overlooked. I believe the reason for this, is that most facilities use text as a way to communicate and often don’t use any other methods. However, the miscommunication problem could be solved if they met with other health care professionals, or even talked to them over the phone to discuss the problems with a particular patient. Even just double checking with someone to make sure they read the patients file would help the situation

immensely.
By improving care networking, it would help the future of health care by making better care more accessible. It would do this by having teams working together to solve a persons’ health issues rather than an individual. This will help provide patients with better access to new health care innovations that one doctor may not know about, but another doctor may have recently went to a conference about it. It will also give more access of care facilities to other patients, because if miscommunication occurs, patients often have longer visits in the hospital and this decreases the number of rooms the hospitals can provide for other patients. However, if there is better communication among health care professionals they will be able to improve patients’ health faster and allow them to be discharged from the hospital sooner, allowing other patients access to rooms earlier.
It would not only help increase the access to care but it would also increase the quality of care. By improving care networking, and providing team oriented care to patients, they will be able to find the root of the issue faster. One doctor may know more about the certain issue than the other and by working as a team they will be able to collaborate on differing opinions and come up with a conclusion faster than they would be able to if an individual doctor was just working on the case. Another way it would achieve this is by decreasing the number of mistakes made due to miscommunication and would be able to offer patients care that would help build on their previous treatments and work together to improve the person’s health.
When care networking is improved, costs for patients, insurance companies, and health care facilities also improve. Patient costs decrease because when doctors work as a team they are more likely to get the patients’ diagnosis right the first time which saves the patients a lot of money by avoiding unnecessary treatment costs and unnecessary care facility visits. It also saves health care facilities money when care networking is improved, in the same way that it helps patients. Health care facilities will save money when unnecessary care facility visits are avoided by allowing more patients admission into the facility and treating more patients by making less mistakes due to communication issues. Also, health insurance companies will save money by not paying for unnecessary patient visits and unnecessary medicine.
Care customization is the last pillar Dishman talks about in the personal health system initiative. This idea deals with the conception many health professionals have, that “patients are averages not individuals” (Dishman, 2013). This is a problem because not everyone’s body works the same as others, so why should they be treated the same? Therefore, Dishman proposes that this ideology change in order for the future of health care to improve, and I agree with him. I also agree with the fact that patient needs to know their healthcare goals and know their needs in order for this idea to work. This will help doctors pinpoint exactly how the patient is unique from others with similar issues and treat them accordingly.
By treating patients as unique individuals, this will help patients receive access to care that is most relevant to the specific issues they are facing. It will also give more access to care facilities rooms because patients will get better faster and other patients will be able to get care quicker. Also, patients will gain more access to how the issue will affect them, especially if they get their genome sequences which allow doctors to see the progression of the issue and better treat the specific problems the patient experiences.
The quality of health care will also improve as a result of care customization. By implementing care customization, it will help doctors know exactly what the issue is and how severe it is and will help them provide better quality care to the patient. It will also help patients get healthier faster, by preventing doctors from assuming they are experiencing the same thing as other patients and by instead only treating the symptoms the patient has. They can also talk with the patient and understand how they feel about treatment and whether they would rather take a lot of medicine over a short period of time, or take small amount of medicine over a longer period of time. If health care providers offer options to patients, they will feel more in control of the situation and will likely feel they received high quality care.
Costs are a big issue when it comes to health care, but by using care customization cost won’t have to be such a burden. When doctors provide patients with customized care, they are providing patients with more options on how little or how much they want to pay. For example, if they chose the option of taking a smaller dosage of medicine for a longer time, they are lengthening the time they have to pay for medicine, but decreasing the amount they have to pay at a time. Also, it helps patients eliminate the cost of unnecessary medicine, because this idea will only prescribe medicine that is specific for the individual’s needs. It will also save care facilities money by not over examining a patient, due to what the average person experiences, but by instead examining the symptoms the patient experiences or what their genome sequence expresses.
Overall, Eric Dishman’s Ted talk was insightful and very thought provoking, and I think many health professionals would benefit from watching this video, because I know I did. Whenever I talked about how his three pillars would improve future health care, I discusses how it would affect cost, quality and access because those are the three most important aspects of health care. If just one of the three pillars discussed by Dishman is implemented, health care will improve in the future, but if all of the pillars are implemented then health care will improve by a much bigger margin. However, these improvements won’t happen overnight and won’t happen if health care providers and patients don’t work together to make sure the personal health system succeeds.

References:
Dishman, E. (2013, March). Retrieved May 02, 2017, from
https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_dishman_health_care_should_be_a_team_sport#t-904483
Govette, J. (2016, December 15). 30 Healthcare Statistics That Keep Hospital Executives Up At
Night. Retrieved April 27, 2017, from https://getreferralmd.com/2016/08/30-healthcare-statistics-keep-hospital-executives-night/