Customer Reviews

The Information Cure - Solving the Healthcare Crisis Systematically through Integrated Healthcare Management

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jeff Margolis takes a logical, step-by-step approach to how U.S. health care is organized, what ails it (as he says, it was never engineered in the first place, so no wonder most attempts to re-engineer it go nowhere), and how to fix it. I like the fact that he focuses on where we are today and builds from there. Yes, it's an almost impossibly complex and hugely expensive system, but he shows how following evidence-based medical protocols, incenting consumers to behave in healthier ways, reimbursing doctors based on results (rather than number of tests run or visits logged) and creating a culture of health where everyone is aligned can make a huge positive difference. There's a great chapter on electronic records and also some tough medicine: we need to start thinking about and saving for health care the same way we do college and retirement. If you don't think institutions like Medicare will ever fail, think about all the people who just lost their fortunes thanks to investing in GM bonds.

All in all, a terrific book with some nice illustrations that shows us how our experience of health care could be much improved in only five years' time.

Amazon recommended this book after I got Porter and Teisberg's Redefining Health Care volume. I was disappointed because I was expecting something similar. The Information Cure is useful for someome who doesn't understand much about what is going on in healthcare or for someone who needs a good overview and refresher. But, I am a healthcare consultant (not a Trizetto competitor) and was expecting more data (hardly any in this book), and more insight (the book is too broad to deal with the details). It seems this is a book that Margolis is using to spread around to sell his consulting work. I do like him though, and nothing in the book if misleading or wrong - it's just not all that useful for professionals in the field.

This is an extremely well thought out book that explains, with the use of interesting and easy to understand analogies and examples, how the health care system really works. It addresses how the system could work better, if technology was leveraged to meet the concerns in America about standards of care, availability and cost. The concept of Integrated Healthcare Management makes sense once you read Jeff's logic in support of the concept. I am convinced that this is the way health care management in America must go.

This book is for anyone who has struggled with the economics or processes of the US healthcare system. The book is clear and fast paced.
Accurate and integrated healthcare information is a critical first step to advance our nations' health (both physical and economic). The author takes us several steps farther down that path to integrated care management and personal health records. Viewing the future through this lens is a call to action on a personal level.
Once you understand the complexities and constituents of the US healthcare systems you are armed for action.
Your health and medical information are inexorably linked. Each is a valuable asset. Integrated healthcare management is a means to increase the value of those assets and an opportunity to diminish our nations' healthcare costs.

Good solid ideas from someone who has been inside and outside the healthcare marketplace. Great starter and foundation for understanding why healthcare is such a dilemma. Definitions were helpful and hopefully will be followed by other works.

Written by the founder and CEO of the Trizetto Group, Jeff Margolis, and published by his company, I'm 60% of the way through this interesting, albeit occasionally dry, read. Basically, in this book he champions integrated health care management. For anyone who understands systems thinking, his position is a no-brainer. However, many people - with most of them being in positions to influence or force the direction our health care delivery and management system takes - do not. The result is an expensive patchwork quilt of redundancies and inefficiencies, with more of the same promised moving forward.

Mr. Margolis examines our health care supply chain from three perspectives:
1) suppliers - individuals and companies that provide health services and products;
2) demanders - benefits brokers, employers, and consumers
3) private payers - managed care (medicare / medicaid), individual insured, employer-sponsored.

Mr. Margolis is very knowledgeable about our health care system, both from a long-time consumer standpoint and from an industry perspective. This is a good book to read if you are a relative neophyte to the industry (as I am), want to learn more about the issues facing our health care system and, IMNSHO, want to learn about the best way to address its problems.

This book - again, only in my opinion - suffers from one shortcoming, the presentation of its information. Its 153 pages belie the amount of information it contains. More and better pictures, charts and graphs throughout the book would have enhanced the book's contents, supported the text and enhanced its message. A professional book editor - or a better one if one were used - would have added a lot of value.

If I could rate it 4.5 I would, but I can't. It's definitely a solid 4, though, and well worth reading.

This book provides a complete, high-level overview of the current healthcare system, it's players and some of its complexity. It is basically tangential to the current health-care debate concerning who gets coverage and how it's paid for. Rather the book argues that we should be changing the systems for how we actually provide healthcare, reforms which can be independent of the insurance provider/payor structure.

(Not, despite the similarity in names, I am not the author, nor am I related to him.)