I love it. Medicare has had enough. Not that this new plan is perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Hmmm, we can save lives AND money by practicing preventive health care.

As noted consultant Tom Peters recently stated in his blog:

“There is little doubt that we lose far more lives to preventable errors (like those that stem from the failure to wash hands carefully!) than we save via sexy new surgical procedures. I once told a group of hospital CIOs (chief information officers) that implementing electronic medical records would allow them to save more lives than the entire surgery department-perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but not by much.”

Genius. Preventive health care saves lives. That’s especially true for seniors. Erickson has been on this bandwagon for a while. Did you know that Erickson communities are the only retirement communities in the country with electronic medical records? I say this not to brag about our company but rather to demonstrate how far behind the American health care system is. To put this into context, only 17-24% of non-Erickson Health^SM physicians use an electronic medical records system (2006 Health Information Technology in U.S. by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and Dr. Matt Narrett, Senior VP and Chief Medical Officer, Erickson Retirement Communities). This is mind-boggling to me, especially as the nation continues to age.

In 2000, an estimated 57 million Americans had multiple chronic conditions. That number is projected to increase to 81 million by 2020.¹ If you are over the age of 65, there is a 65% chance you have at least two chronic conditions, ranging from the aches and pains of arthritis to the ongoing threat of diabetes. Moreover, people with multiple chronic conditions may have more rapid declines in health status and a greater likelihood of disability than the general public.² Why? Because multiple chronic conditions require close medical coordination. Do something to treat one condition and you may adversely affect another. Electronic medical records help closely coordinate this care.

Let me take this even further. One study found that individuals with chronic conditions were less likely to receive important routine outpatient medical treatments that were unrelated to their chronic condition.³ In short, not seeing someone who specializes in treating the multiple chronic conditions that come with aging can be a preventable, costly mistake. Costly in two ways : financially and physically. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

John Erickson, the founder of Erickson Retirement Communities, was recently quoted in American Executive magazine:

“ ‘The way the system is set up now, people are paid to be sick and not to be well,’ Erickson said. ‘Medicare will pay for a $25,000 hip fracture, but they won’t pay for a $25 balance test that could prevent that type of injury. That doesn’t make any sense.’ ”

I hope the American health care system catches on to John’s vision of preventive health care sooner rather than later (before I need it).

1. Wu SY, Green A. Projection of Chronic Illness Prevalence and Cost Inflation. Washington, DC: RAND Health, 2000.

2. Cornoni-Huntley JC, Foley DJ, Guraninkik JM. “Co-morbidity analysis: a strategy for understanding mortality, disability and the use of health care facilities of older people.” International Journal of Epidemiol . 1991.

3. Redelmeirer DA, Tan SH, Booth GL. “The treatment of unrelated disorders in patients with chronic medical diseases.” New England Journal of Medicine. 1998.

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