Three Ways To Improve U.S. Healthcare, As Demonstrated In India

A cardiologist's experience in practice and travel

Listening to caregivers from other countries, it's easy to feel exasperated about U.S healthcare. American hospitals are filled with good people trying to do good work, but at every turn the system of misplaced incentives gets in the way of good patient care.

Indeed, the most pressing problem with American healthcare is that it is too wasteful. Writing in the Harvard Business Review and the Washington Post, two U.S. business professors, Vijay Govindarajan from Dartmouth and Ravi Ramammurti from Northeastern University tell the story of how Indian hospitals deliver better care for much less.

The two professors uncovered nine private hospitals in India that provide quality care at a fraction of U.S. prices. For example, cardiac surgery there costs $3,200, which is 5 to 10 percent of the cost in the United States. Outcomes are comparable and the hospitals make a profit. "Narayana Health, for instance, reports that the 30-day post-surgery mortality rate for coronary artery bypass procedures at its Bangalore hospital is below the average rate recorded by a sample of 143 hospitals in Texas," they write...