The third episode of the PBS series, Remaking American Medicine, entitled The Stealth Epidemic, was an examination of the financial and human costs that chronic conditions such as diabetes and congestive heart failure are having on the American medical system.
It is hard to believe that these conditions are affecting 100 million Americans—30% of the population—consuming 70% of health care resources and threatening to overwhelm the American health care system.
An interesting choice for a title, The Stealth Epidemic—an epidemic that is perhaps furtively spreading amongst the population and surreptitiously consuming health care resources.
The program looked at the initiatives of two health care systems attempting to transform patient care and health care spending, one in Los Angeles and the other in Whatcom County, Washington. Through the leadership of administrators and doctors, nurse-run clinics and nurse in-home visitations are attempting to educate diabetic patients about managing their disease.
While these initiatives are making an impact and should be championed, the problems of policy, politics and economics—an underlying current in this series—present numerous hurdles.
3 comments:
ABC,
What did you think of that extraordinary diabetologist dealing with all those patients?
Also, what information sources do you think she used?
Great show, eh?
Dean
Obesity really is a health crisis, although I'm not sure "stealth" is the adjective I would have chosen to describe it.
I think one of the greatest gifts parents give their children is developing an early taste for foods that are good for them. It's amazing how those tastes will stay with you into adulthood. Those of you who have lived for any length of time in another culture will have come across foods that you can't believe anyone finds palatable, no matter how long you live there. Yet people who grew up eating those foods find them delicious and suffer if they're cut off from them.
One example is Japanese "nattou" fermented soybeans that is part of the traditional Japanese breakfast. My son spent the first few years of his life eating it and still loves it with rice. The smell is enough to drive me out of the room, though.
Interesting. When I was in undergrad, a study was done of the 10 top medical costs to the UBC Medical/Dental insurance. 9 out of 10 of the medicines listed were antidepressants or oral contraceptives. Unfortunately, can't remember what the 10th medicine was.
Not what you'd expect, eh?
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