I recently read Best Care Anywhere, a great book that I think contributes to the discussion about healthcare and how the current U.S. system may change in the near future. In my leadership consulting practice I have worked extensively with the VA since 1995 and was able to observe many of the revolutionary changes that have taken place within the VA healthcare system in recent years. This book may not be the normal type of leadership book that I will review on this blog, but I believe that this is one book that can make a positive contribution to the current healthcare debate. Plus, the book is filled with numerous examples of organizational change, leadership and quality improvement that make it interesting reading for students of leadership training and change management practices. The following review is also posted at Amazon.com.

The Review

Phillip Longman makes the case that current U.S. healthcare is a fragmented, market driven system that lags behind much of the industrialized world in both quality and access of healthcare. According to Longman, the problem with our healthcare system is that it isn’t really a system and that it doesn’t reward the one thing that it should - health improvement. In fact, he offers proof that in the U.S. doctors and hospitals are rewarded for providing treatment, but not necessarily providing health to their patients. To illustrate this, he offers examples from two of the nation’s premier hospitals - Beth Israel and Duke Medical Center. Both initiated programs that were so successful at improving health that they became unprofitable and were ultimately terminated.

This book is filled with understandable, but often shocking statistics. For example, every year in the United States 98,000 people die due to medical errors while in the hospital, another 90,000 die due to infections that they get while in the hospital, and 126,000 needlessly die because their doctor failed to use evidence-based protocols for just four of the most common conditions.

The solution? Longman speaks effusively about the VA healthcare system. And rightfully so. It is the only fully functioning, evidence-based healthcare system in the country. The book explores the history of the VA and speaks honestly about some of the warts that mar the VA’s reputation. But the truth of the matter is that the VA has turned all of that around and is currently at the front of the healthcare revolution.

Longman’s book contains sections on safety, quality improvement, the concept of lifetime healthcare, and the Kizer Revolution at the VA, which dramatically improved quality and altered forever the course of veterans’ healthcare.

The section on VistA, the software program that is revolutionizing healthcare, is worth the price of the book. This open source software program is really a bundle of 20,000 programs written in open source code. Surprisingly, it is being adopted extensively around the world - but not right here at home.

Longman proposes a reform of the U.S. healthcare system that incorporates the best of VistA and many other VA best practices and innovations. If you are interested in the healthcare debate and what is possible in future U.S. healthcare, I highly recommend this book.

For those interested in learning more about the healthcare debate and want to explore other opinions, I would also recommend the following three books: A Second Opinion: Rescuing America’s Health Care; Who Killed Health Care?: America’s $2 Trillion Medical Problem - and the Consumer-Driven Cure; and Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results.

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