How will MedOn (p.p.) operate?

In a nutshell -- with most of the goals outlined in Porter & Olmstead-Teisberg's 2006 book on health care --

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_detail.jhtml;jsessionid=WMYRKFHW0JUE2AKRGWDR5VQBKE0YIISW?id=7782&_requestid=128898

The U.S. health care system is in crisis. At stake are the quality of care for millions of Americans and the financial well-being of individuals and employers squeezed by skyrocketing premiums--not to mention the stability of state and federal government budgets. In Redefining Health Care, internationally renowned strategy expert Michael E. Porter and innovation expert Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg reveal the underlying--and largely overlooked--causes of the problem and provide a powerful prescription for change. The authors argue that participants in the health care system have competed to shift costs, accumulate bargaining power, and restrict services rather than create value for patients. This zero-sum competition takes place at the wrong level--among health plans, networks, and hospitals--rather than where it matters most: in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of specific health conditions. Redefining Health Care lays out a breakthrough framework for redefining health care competition based on patient value. With specific recommendations for hospitals, doctors, health plans, employers, and policy makers, this book shows how to move to a positive-sum competition that will unleash stunning improvements in quality and efficiency.

To paraphrase Warren Buffett -- our goals are value, value, value.

Not buck-passing. Not bureaucracy. Not work-avoidance. Not herky-jerky treatment systems.

If it don't get the patient better -- if it does not create value -- dump it.

MedOn (p.p.) began as a logical response to medical tourism -- why burn all that CO2-producing jet fuel?

The short-coming of medical tourism -- still mired in buck-passing. Who's responsible for what?

MedOn's goal is to create 'caring circles of community." To operationalize systematically, and not with the awful, wasteful, and soul-crushing SNAFUs that plague health care today.

To those who say that the Porter/Olmstead approach is unrealistic and unworkable -- we have read your comments.

Our reply: the beauty of MedOn (pat. pend.) is that, at this point, it is a "clean sheet."

No embedded culture of SNAFUs and FUBARs. And a clear, strong vision -- affordable medical treatment for the working-class, to provide authentic patient value.

So .. to those AMA-types who call MedOn "provocative" --

If providing affordable quality medical-care options for the working-class is "provocative" to you, we wish you well.

We're trying to work with others to make things better for patients.

Harvard's Michael "Healthcare" Porter in Israel

America's best in Israel ..

"No, No , No" exclaimed Michael Porter, chastising the Associate Director of a major medical center in Israel, "You have to raise your hand." Such blatant breaches of HBS etiquette were relatively frequent over the course of the week long IXP, which drew a wide range of participants, many of whom were unfamiliar with the peculiarities of the typical HBS classroom.

The Value-Based Health Care Delivery IXP, co-led by Professor's Porter, and Elizabeth Teisberg (formerly of HBS and currently a professor at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia), was a multi-disciplinary immersion program based on the framework presented in the book, Redifining Healthcare. The book, which diagnoses the problem of competition in the modern healthcare system, introduces a broad set of strategies which providers, payers, employers and the government can use to improve value. The immersion program was designed as an extension of the book, and involved case studies and subsequent discussions of companies and organizations who have implemented strategies that demonstrate the principles outlined by Porter and Teisberg.

Program participants came from all corners of the healthcare sector. In addition to 17 HBS MBA students with prior healthcare experience (10 of whom were MD MBA's), there were students from Harvard School of Public Health, Kennedy School of Government, and Harvard Medical School. Participants also included many medical residents and practicing physicians, most of whom were affiliated with hospitals in the Boston area, including several heads of departments and several senior surgeons and administrators. Finally, there was also a significant international contingent, with participants flying in from Ireland, Israel, England, and Canada.