Health Attitude: Unraveling and Solving the Complexities of Healthcare

By: John R. Patrick

Narrated by: John Edmondson

Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's Summary

“Health Attitude...presents an optimistic future where innovation, technology, empathy and sound business principles collide into a 'big-bang' of better healthcare!”

“When we look back ten years from now on the revolution that occurred in healthcare, John Patrick’s book Health Attitude will be viewed as one of the prologues of that revolution. We tend to overestimate technology in the short term and underestimate its role in the long term. Simply put, this book presents an optimistic future where innovation, technology, empathy and sound business principles collide into a 'big-bang' of better healthcare!” (Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, president and CEO, Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health System)

“As one of the world’s technology pioneers, John Patrick is a sought after innovator and strategic thinker. In Health Attitude, Patrick paints a grim portrait of America’s healthcare system today, then unveils a canvas upon which we can create a better future using technology.” (Skip Prichard, president and CEO, OCLC)

“John Patrick brings a fresh and insightful perspective to the healthcare debates in the U.S. His experience as technologist, entrepreneur and patient enables new thinking and innovative strategies that should drive policy, planning and delivery.” (James G. Neal, Columbia University librarian emeritus)

“Health Attitude offers a valuable perspective for a layperson who makes healthcare decisions for his or her family and parents. It provides great hope for improved and more affordable healthcare ahead.” (Peg Grimm, Pennsylvania health-care consumer)

“John Patrick's Health Attitude clearly lays out a roadmap toward healthcare efficiency, which will result in an affordable and effective wellness based system in the future.” (Robin Felder, PhD, chair, MedicalAutomation.org and professor of pathology, University of Virginia)

©2015 John R. Patrick (P)2023 John R. Patrick

Why does it cost so much and what can be done?

If you are a layperson trying to understand why the cost per capita of healthcare in the US is so much higher than the rest of the developed world with no better and often times worse outcomes this is the book for you. John Patrick combines his own very relevant experience with a prodigious amount of research to address each of the major elements of cost on a macro and micro basis and comes up with suggestions for significant productivity improvements and cost reductions. He makes a compelling case that the current Fee for Service Model has to shift to a more patient centric, Fee for Value approach. After listening to his well written, thorough review of this very complex subject it's hard to disagree with him.

Reasonable solutions, comprehensive & eye-opening

The problems described are so vast that they seem not a boulder but rather a mountain that this author skillfully picks up, turns over and twists around to look at from every side. The solutions offered seem reasonable, sensible and achievable. All in all a very clear view of a stupendously huge problem with many chilling and disturbing aspects of which I had no idea before reading this very, very good book. It is to be hoped that policymakers in the new Administration will read this book.

Not a "must read" by any means

if you read widely about health care policy, you'll find little new in this book. That said, the final chapter has interested me in reading the author's earlier book, Net Attitude.