Medscape Video: Re-Empowering Primary Care

An Open Letter To The Obama Health Team

DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPER

First Published in THCB

It seems likely that the Obama administration and Congress will spend a significant amount on health IT by attaching it as a first-order priority to the fiscal stimulus package. We take the President-elect at his word when he recently said:
“...we must also ensure that our hospitals are connected to each other through the Internet. That is why the economic recovery plan I’m proposing will help modernize our health care system – and that won’t just save jobs, it will save lives. We will make sure that every doctor’s office and hospital in this country is using cutting edge technology and electronic medical records so that we can cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help save billions of dollars each year.” (December, 6, 2008)

Re-Empowering Primary care

Brian Klepper

A video-commentary that appeared - see here - on the Medscape Journal of Medicine.

Over the last couple decades, America's primary care physicians -- PCPs -- have been relegated to medicine's lowest caste.^[1] But many employers, who pay for the waste that results from tying PCP's hands, now see them as healthcare's most probable saviors.