The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, and it has a new series of articles I find particularly interesting called Fundamentals of U.S. Health Policy. I’ll be reading through the articles of that series and giving some thoughts in response.
The first article in the series, written by Eric Schneider, Debra Malina, and Stephen Morrissey, introduces and defines the field of health policy, and then it defines the goal for the series: “To offer a foundation for a common understanding of where we stand and where we need to go.”
When I tell people I’m an internal medicine physician but that my real passion is health policy, they often respond by saying, “Oh, so you want to get into administration, eh?” And then I have the opportunity to introduce them to this amazing field of health policy.
Sometimes I’ll tell them my oversimplified analogy to NCAA basketball, with the clinicians being the players, the administrators being the coaches, and the policy makers being the NCAA. Sometimes I’ll tell them I want to set the rules for the system, to align incentives properly. Sometimes I’ll simply just say my goal is to fix the healthcare system (so far, everyone agrees–it needs fixing).
This is how Schneider et al. define it: “the choices made by the people who govern, manage, deliver, and pay for health care.” They also describe it as shaping (1) how clinicians deliver care and (2) how patients seek care, obtain care, pay for care, and adhere to care.
There are many other definitions you can find online with a quick “what is health policy?” search. But they all seem kind of vague and textbook-y and obscure the captivating challenge and monumental opportunity that health policy offers.
My working definition of health policy is different. I would say that health policy is the field of work that deals with making the rules for our healthcare system; it takes on the ultimate challenge of figuring out how to properly align all the industry participants’ incentives in a way that motivates them to maximize value for patients. And then I’d add some rhetoric about how healthcare is the most complex and high-stakes industry there is, that it’s like the ultimate puzzle, and I’d tell them about how success can mean solving many people’s greatest heartaches, solving the nation’s fiscal crisis, and saving the world.
I look forward to evaluating the rest of the articles in this series!
Clear Thinking on Healthcare 