The North Carolina Medical Board recently reviewed a case where doctors and interns tried to induce labor on a patient, and then performed a Caesarean section, but found there was no baby inside the woman’s womb, Foxnews.com reports. Apparently an intern did an ultrasound before the surgery and could not find a heartbeat. It was at this time that the patient convinced doctors to induce her. The medical board said the intern did not have enough experience to make the “appropriate diagnosis.”

No kidding.

It was determined that the patient suffered from pseudocyesis, which is the medical term for “false pregnancy.” A person suffering from pseudocyesis may often have all the same signs and symptoms as a person who is actually pregnant, but there is no fetus.

While I accept the likelihood that pseudocyesis was the patient’s root problem, I am curious about the failed ultrasound. As father of three and grandfather of two I’ve seen a few fetal ultrasounds. Although I’m not expert enough to use them for diagnoses, I think even I could determine if a full-term fetus was there or not.

The desperate need for process improvement in healthcare continues to blare forth in the headlines. I may need to start a regular feature on the subject!

Ready-Fire-Aim. Once again the healthcare profession finally gets around to looking at data, only to discover that it is actually harming patients by treating them. The Los Angeles Times reports that a major nationwide trial called ACCORD released Sunday show that lowering either blood pressure or cholesterol levels below current guidelines do not provide additional benefit and, in fact, increase the risk of side effects. A third arm of the study, released two years ago, shows that lowering blood sugar levels excessively actually increases the risk of heart disease.

The Lean Six Sigma and Quality professions learned long ago that there is no substitute for facts and data. In pursuing Lean Six Sigma so many myths are exploded that we soon come to question any so-called fact that can’t be supported with evidence, with the important exception of creative ideas and innovation. As time goes by the value of this position becomes obvious. As change agents trained in the approach move into positions of leadership the organization’s DNA begins to change.

In most industries mistakes result in an economic loss. Although serious, it is usually possible to learn from mistakes and improve. In contrast healthcare mistakes create health consequences, sometimes as serious as death. Yet the healthcare profession remains incredibly resistant to using facts and data to guide their recommendations and treatment. The ACCORD study is but the latest example. A few years ago the ENHANCE study produced similar lessons regarding the treatment to prevent heart disease. Other studies show that low cost diuretics are as effective as the high priced prescription medications normally prescribed. Another study showed that the standard treatment for sudden deafness is no better than a placebo. Still another showed that the standard of care for certain breast cancers was based on fraudulent research and killed patients.

All of these studies have a number of things in common. All were conducted to verify treatments that had been in use for many years. All showed that the treatments were either worthless, or worse than worthless. And most have been largely ignored by the healthcare profession.

It’s anyone’s guess when the healthcare profession will join the business community in embracing process improvement. Let’s hope it happens soon, before change is forced upon them.

The person who discovered the test used to screen 30 million American men for prostate cancer, the prostate-specific-antigen or PSA test, says the test is a hugely expensive healthcare disaster. In the New York Times Op-ed piece  The Great Prostate Mistake Professor Richard J. Ablin  states

“I discovered P.S.A. in 1970. As Congress searches for ways to cut costs in our health care system, a significant savings could come from changing the way the antigen is used to screen for prostate cancer.”

Americans spend an enormous amount testing for prostate cancer. The annual bill for P.S.A. screening is at least $3 billion, with much of it paid for by Medicare and the Veterans Administration. Meanwhile, the test is hardly more effective than a coin toss. P.S.A. testing can’t detect prostate cancer and, more important, it can’t distinguish between the two types of prostate cancer — the one that will kill you and the one that won’t.Instead, the test simply reveals how much of the prostate antigen a man has in his blood. Infections, over-the-counter drugs like ibuprofen, and benign swelling of the prostate can all elevate a man’s P.S.A. levels, but none of these factors signals cancer. Men with low readings might still harbor dangerous cancers, while those with high readings might be completely healthy.

So why is it still used? According to Ablin it’s because drug companies continue peddling the tests and advocacy groups push “prostate cancer awareness” by encouraging men to get screened. Shamefully, the American Urological Association still recommends screening, while the National Cancer Institute is vague on the issue, stating that the evidence is unclear.

The bottom line?

“Testing should absolutely not be deployed to screen the entire population of men over the age of 50, the outcome pushed by those who stand to profit.”

This according to the man who discovered the test over four decades ago.

Personally, I think the logic used in Professor Ablin’s op-ed piece should be used to assess the value of all recommendations used to test and medicate Americans into bankruptcy without improving health in the slightest.

Tom Pyzdek

Let’s be honest, America’s healthcare non-system has its problems. Let’s not quibble over whether or not it is better than socialized systems. For one thing, the demand side is already socialized. Nearly 90% of the cost of healthcare is paid for by third parties, either the insurance company or a government program like Medicare or Medicaid. When a person doesn’t have to bear the cost of the product or service they receive, whatever the system is, it isn’t Capitalism. The supply side however, is pretty much free, at least in the sense that the patient has free access to whatever services and medications their primary care physicians prescribe. The physician doesn’t pay for it; the patient doesn’t pay for it. How about a CT Scan for that pain you’ve had for the past couple of days? Why not? You’re not paying for it!

Exactly what to call this arrangement escapes me. I think there’s plenty of ammo here for a lively political debate where both sides can point fingers at the failings of the other side. There’s plenty of blame to go around. However, it’s not my purpose to examine the whole healthcare issue in this single column. Instead, I’d like to discuss the impact of the current ridiculous situation on the field I’ve spent a lifetime in: quality.

Once upon a time I was working with hospitals trying to improve quality. I assume that we can all agree that this is a worthwhile effort. After all, there is little argument that there is room for improvement. The 1999 report “To Err is Human” by the Institute of Medicine estimated that medical mistakes kill about a jumbo-jet full of people each and every day, and subsequent studies by other groups have shown this to be a low estimate. Anyway, I was lucky enough to work with groups of dedicated healthcare professionals who were able to make significant improvements in areas such as reduced infections, reduction of unnecessary c-sections, faster response times, etc.. The result was a reduction in the average length of stay, fewer readmissions, and other improvements that patients and their families were happy about. One of the most enthusiastic of those working on quality improvement was a young man who I will call Rob. Rob had a great deal of experience in all aspects of hospital administration and soon found himself appointed as administrator of a 500 bed medical center. All of us who had worked with Rob were delighted and we looked forward to an expansion of the quality improvement work Rob had championed when he was in middle-management.

For a while, that’s exactly what we got. Rob’s leadership support began making big dents in chronic problems that were costly in terms of unnecessary patient suffering as well as in waste due to preventable problems. Thanks to Rob I was able to attend meetings with the hospital board of directors, where Rob arranged to have quality improvement teams present their remarkable results to apparently enthusiastic board members.

Soon, however, the atmosphere at these meetings began to change. The chairman of the board, also the president of the bank which held most of the hospital’s debt, pointed out to Rob that the reduced patient-days, lower number of c-sections, reduced readmissions, etc. were cutting into the hospital’s revenue stream. He pointed out the obvious: private and government insurance company money was available to pay for treating a medical mistake, there was no way to know if many c-sections were necessary or not, a readmission paid the same as a first admission. In short, quality improvement was costing the hospital money.

Rob wasn’t blind to the implications. If he couldn’t get revenues up, he would be replaced. Furthermore, in addition to the pressure from the board, physicians were also grumbling about the impact of improved quality on their incomes. Quality was nice to talk about, but when it came to actually giving up the added income, well, that was another story. Rob had a simple choice: follow his conscience and lose his job, or return to business as usual. Soon the quality improvement activities were reduced to a few token people. Gradually, the improvements came undone. Rob eventually lost his job anyway, but the message was clear enough that his successors had no difficulty figuring it out.

In typical buyer/seller situations the problems would be resolved by competition. If one manufacturer’s television set isn’t as good as another the word will spread and people will vote with their dollars for the better value. However, try finding out about the problems at your local hospitals. Or about your physician’s performance relative to others in your area. I’ve tried. And while I’ve discovered some sources of information, the data seems skimpy to me and, shall we say, sanitized. I don’t see the kind of honest customer commentary I see in places like Amazon.com. I suspect there are forces at work making the world work this way.

To summarize: based on personal experience I can tell you that the quality tools that work with other industries work just as well in healthcare. This is no surprise, really. Healthcare has processes, and our tools help people rapidly improve processes. Quality healthcare can be as easily judged by healthcare consumers as by consumers of other services, and our tools help people rapidly improve quality. We can help remove waste from healthcare value streams as surely as we can from any other value streams.

But the missing element is the incentive to improve forced upon other industries by competition and easy access to information. In other industries, customers decide where to spend their own money and have to live with the costs and consequences of their decisions. They have access to frank and open assessments of others about their experiences with a particular supplier and the products and services they provide. They are free to move to a new supplier easily if they decide it is in their best interest to do so. None of these things hold true in healthcare. If we truly want to improve healthcare, in the sense of that we get higher quality service at a lower cost, then we need to address the root causes of the problem. Look at the proposed solutions to the healthcare crisis through this lens and ask yourself if they are treating the underlying disease or making it even worse.