Next in Line: Lowered Care Expectations in the Age of Retail- and Value-Based Health

by Timothy J. Hoff

Overview

For all the political branding and rebranding of healthcare in the United States, its fundamental unit of currency remains the doctor-patient relationship. This relationship has undergone seismic changes during the twenty-first century, including the introduction of new players (the so-called healthcare "team") and care delivery in settings like big-box stores and bureaucratic health systems. But are any of us better off?

Next in Line is the first book to examine the doctor-patient relationship in the context of its new environs, in particular the impact of efficiency-driven innovation and retail-care models on physician mindsets and the patient experience. The overall picture is one of lowered expectations-a transactional, impersonal, and institutionally-limited incarnation of the medical bedside that leaves all parties underwhelmed and overstressed.

By first conducting a macro-analysis of key industry trends (including the widespread use of performance metrics and retail principles), then measuring these trends' impacts through interviews with physicians and patients, ext in Line is both an examination and a critique of a care system at a crossroads. It is essential reading for understanding why relational care matters — and why it must be saved in a corporatized health system bent on using retail approaches to deliver care.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190626341
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/25/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Timothy J. Hoff, PhD, is a Professor of Management, Healthcare Systems, and Health Policy at Northeastern University, and a Visiting Associate Fellow at Oxford University. He has worked in and studied the U.S. health care system for three decades. His research has won national awards from major professional academic societies, and Dr. Hoff is a nationally recognized expert on physician behavior, health care reform and innovation, primary care system transformation, and health workforce issues.

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Doctor-Patient Relationships and Our Expectations

2. The Forces Impacting Doctor-Patient Relationships and our Expectations

3. Retail Thinking Comes to Health Care: The Patient as Consumer

4. All Roads Lead to Trust: How Doctors See the Relationship and Our Expectations

5. The Tyranny of Lowered Expectations: How Patients See the Relationship

6. Ceding Care to the Corporation: Making Doctors Disappear

7. Saving the Doctor-Patient Relationship and Raising Expectations

Appendix: How the Study Was Conducted

References

Index

Editorial Reviews

"Caring and healing are vital core elements of what our health system provides us, not just 'externalities' of some vast economic process. Hoff's sophisticated analysis is a reminder of what we stand to lose as a society if we don't get this right." — Jeff Goldsmith, Health Affairs

From the Publisher