I had a patient who told me that she was not experiencing any significant burden of treatment from caring for her type 1 diabetes. A minutes later she went on to tell of a tragicomic experience trying to get an Omnipod insulin pump: calls to diabetes clinician, educator, insurance company, Omnipod rep, plus their administrative assistants, voicemails, faxed forms requests, etc. This story made me think of this brilliant video by The Altons:
This video of Air Healthcare is based on an article by Jonathan Rauch in The National Journal Magazine here.
Clinicians need to be aware of what happens in their own front offices, back offices, and the administrative challenges patients face with access to them, their medicines, devices, and other components of their care. These disruptions may lead to poor treatment fidelity and outcomes. A minimally disruptive medicine approach would apply lean methods from a patient centered perspective to correct this situation. Thoughts?
