Whenever I go to a new city, I am struck by how the largest and fanciest building is often a hospital.
The Texas Medical Center in Houston has 2.1 square miles of buildings that can be seen from space.
OHSU (the largest hospital in Portland) has 37 major buildings.
The largest building in my town, Phoenix, is a Children’s Hospital.
I keep wondering: are these buildings a sign of medical progress, or are people (particularly kids) just getting sicker?
Every health condition we face is siloed into a different department and building. If your child has an ear infection, you see an ENT for antibiotics or ear plugs. If you have high cholesterol, see your cardiologist for a statin or a bypass surgery. If you are depressed, see your psychologist for an SSRI. If you’re having fertility issues, see your OBGYN for estrogen pills or an IVF procedure. But all of these conditions are getting worse.
In years of diving into this topic, I’m convinced one of the most important health principles is that if you, your child, or your parents are thrown into this siloed healthcare system for a physical or mental condition – ask questions about the incentives and push to find the root cause of what’s actually happening. The current system isn’t incentivized to do this.
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Calley Means 