While well-resourced and possessing some of the best doctors, hospitals, medical schools and industrial capabilities in the world, South Carolina’s medical care environment has become unbalanced with patient well-being no longer as its priority.
“What we have in South Carolina is a Medical Care Crisis, not a healthcare crisis,” said Dr. Spence Taylor, Founder and CEO of Integral Leaders in Health, a public benefit corporation created to develop and implement a process that restores patient well-being as the standard. “The healthcare components are amazing, the integration between them is not.”
Since its formation, Integral Leaders in Health has been studying the components of medical care, and in thought-leader pieces posted to its website, its leadership team has given examples of solutions such as autonomy, communication, and adherence to moral duty. Now, they have created an effective, reproducible, and scalable plan to fix the medical care crisis.
Integral Leaders in Health’s MEDs (Medical Excellence Driven) Designation requires healthcare businesses to meet standards that they theorize will bring balance to the medical care environment.
The MEDs Designation aspires to achieve six chief objectives:
∙ Brings general and academic awareness to the situation.
∙ Mitigates clinical burnout of caregivers.
∙ Overhaul communications.
∙ Help identify dedicated resources to fund the process.
∙ Educate caregivers on how to deliver medical care.
∙ Engage the medical industrial complex as partners, not vendors.
“The goal is to solve the Medical Care Crisis in that specific environment,” said Howell Clyborne, Director of Strategic Communications and Government Relations for Integral Leaders in Health. “Then to use that success to build a better system.”
For example, the process might target a small town with a single hospital or a medical staff that is composed of private and employed doctors or insurance carriers or governmental officials or community colleges that educate caregivers or business leaders or a defined population of patients.
As part of the MEDs Designation process, a Care Environment Self-Study Task Force (CESTF) is formed with representation from all stakeholder groups to include patients. That task force, then, oversees a prescribed process reviewing five Standards:
∙ Community Integration
∙ Caregiver Integration
∙ Hospital Integration
∙ Payor Integration
∙ University/Innovation Integration
They are assessed using 40 Elements: approximately eight Elements per Standard. If all Standards and Elements are met, the result will be enhanced patient well-being and special recognition, the Integral Leaders in Health MEDs Designation.
“How do we fix the Medical Care Crisis?” asked Dr. Jerry Youkey, Director of Physician & Practice Relations with Integral Leaders in Health. “We believe the answer is the MEDs Designation. We are currently looking for our first pilot for the process -- an opportunity, we see, to lead the direction of medicine to where patient well-being is the priority and all else is subordinate.”
About Integral Leaders in Health:
Integral Leaders in Health’s mission aims to revolutionize medical care into a balanced environment that meets the needs of the individual patient by focusing on their outcomes. They can educate, inform and catalyze measurable change through targeted strategic campaigns. Learn more at www.integralleadersinhealth.com.