FRONTLINE: Doctor Hotspot (full report)

[DeSwiss]

Run time: 13:08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DiwTjeF5AU   Posted on YouTube: August 03, 2011 By YouTube Member: PBS Views on YouTube: 2122   Posted on DU: August 05, 2011 By DU Member: DeSwiss Views on DU: 1099

 

New Yorker writer and FRONTLINE correspondent Atul Gawande reports on a doctor in Camden, N.J., who actually seeks out the community's sickest — and most expensive — patients.

Dr. Jeffrey Brenner is a local physician who some believe might have the model to solve one of America's most intractable problems: lowering the cost of health care. While analyzing medical billing data in Camden, N.J., he mapped out "hot spots" of the impoverished city's high-cost patients. By targeting unique care -- including home visits and social workers -- at the city's most costly patients, he developed a program that he argues has both lowered health care costs and provided better care in Camden.

But can his model work for the rest of the nation?

Dr. Brenner's organization, the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers (http://www.camdenhealth.org/about/history/), and other similar models were the subject of a January 2011 feature in http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/24/110124fa_fact_gawande?currentPage­=all">The New Yorker by journalist and physician Dr. Atul Gawande.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/doctor-hotspot/

Watch more than 100 full FRONTLINE episodes at http://pbs.org/frontline

Camden, New Jersey is one of America's poorest cities. And potentially reducing their medical costs by as much as 40%, I fear a lot of doctors and medical practitioners within the current system just won't like that. Not one bit. Especially if it means they will get less as a result.

- Nope, I don't think they'll like that at all. Even if the patients do.....

[midnight]

1. K&R

[alp227]

2. thanks for posting - will watch/record it when my local PBS shows it n/t