If You Read Only One Book about Healthcare, It Shouldn't Be Mine

That's easy for me to say now -- because based on the sales figures, most high- and mid-level employee health executives have already read Why Nobody Believes the Numbers, Cracking Health Costs and Surviving Workplace Wellness. (OK, the last one, not so much...)

However, if for whatever reason (e.g., living on another planet or using a consulting firm that doesn't want you to know I exist) you haven't read those three, the book you should read before any of them is the separated-at-birth, New York Times-bestseller version of Quizzify: Unaccountable, by Marty Makary MD. Every page recounts one harrowing anecdote after another about how medical errors or doctor or patient ignorance caused (or narrowly avoided causing) a catastrophic result.  And these poor results and errors are not random: the book also covers how many hospitals allow almost unspeakably bad surgeons to thrive because no one will speak out against them.

I'm not a huge Howard Stern fan, to put it mildly, but one thing that always impressed me about him was that he himself was often the subject of his own diatribes. (Those of you who follow him can probably think of one running example, which could not be restated in a family publication like Linkedin, but which sure makes the rest of us guys feel better about ourselves.) Dr. Makary is the same way in this book: on multiple occasions he blames himself for silently participating in coverups of bad actions or bad behaviors. And no wonder--the formal and informal punishments doled out to interns and residents and others who speak up are quite draconian, almost career-enders.

Absent that kind of accountability from peers -- or as he shows later, from anyone, for that matter -- it's Katy-bar-the-door to commit completely avoidable medical errors. The harms that he describes being perpetrated on patients in the name of profit, efficiency, or marketing would shock you--unless of course you had already completed the entire Quizzify curriculum, which teaches the same thing.

Examples:

• Surgical robots are a complete scam. There is zero evidence suggesting better outcomes and considerable potential for harms, which never get published for a variety of reasons;
• Surgeons without training will nonetheless either attempt minimally invasive surgeries and/or try to convince patients that an open surgery is a better option;
• Surgeries and other interventions (such as chemotherapy on terminally ill patients) are, shockingly, often done for the money;
• Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death...and Dr. Makary cites multitudes of avoidable ones.

Yes, I know it's not always about me, but this information does reinforce Quizzify. Our mantra is "wiser employees make better decisions." Yes, we also ask a number of questions to create employee skepticism about surgical robots. Yes, we also recommend shopping for minimally invasive surgery or inquiring whether the surgeon has actually done any (or more than a few) of these things. But more importantly, Quizzify and Unaccountable instill confidence -- in employees and readers respectively -- to ask questions, investigate, push back.

Basically don't automatically assume that someone has all the answers because they wear a white coat. That's probably the best advice from either source, and you just got it free. Still, I'm sure Dr. Makary wouldn't mind if you bought the book to get the "back story" any more than we here at Quizzify mind if you subscribe to it to allow your employees access to these back stories on an ongoing basis.