Medical Professionalism and the Federal Debt

It wasn't too long ago that we all concentrated on the military procurement process as being at the root of our Federal budget woes. Remember $600 toilet seats for military airplanes? Well, either they fixed how the military purchases things or that is still a problem but has been pushed off of our radar screens by health care and social entitlement programs' costs.

In today's KevinMD.com social media blog, Rosemary Gibson writes about the link between physician professionalism and the soaring national deficit. Rosemary has been a national leader for quality and safety initiatives while at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She does a wonderful job helping us imagine just how big $14 trillion dollars is. That is the size of the federal debt. She then beautifully connects our national spending hemorrhage (the federal government borrows 40 cents of every dollar it spends) to the singular behavior of doctors in writing orders and prescriptions in our diagnostic and treatment workflow.

It is impossible to overstate how much health care costs are contributing to our national deficit crisis. We need rapid and radical action to reengineer how medical decisions are being made, starting with a commitment from all of us in the white coats to remember our professional responsibilities to our patients and to stewardship of the system in which we offer care.

Please read her article.