Making Medical Donations Work

Across the United States, health care is failing a number of Native Americans, so some tribes are taking matters into their own hands. The most successful example, which others are hoping to model, is that of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium which has relied on partnerships and grant revenue to survive.

Infection rates - once kept private by hospitals - are now public record in 32 states, California included. This new transparency - coupled with Medicare now docking payments to hospitals that don’t meet quality measures - is prompting innovation at many hospitals with high infection rates.

Researchers in New Jersey have been testing the idea that an increased specialized care model directed towards the sickest and most expensive patients would help reduce costs and improve health, but the trials have been less than promising. However, it was in the failures of the approach, that researchers learned that creating broader partnerships and addressing underlying issues for the patients may have been the missing key.

After learning that 17 of Iowa's rural hospitals were facing closures due to a lack of finances, so these smaller hospitals partnered with larger ones in order to focus on specialized care. Although challenges still remain on the horizon, these mergers have provided a solution that allows community members better access to care and the ability to remain in the areas they want to live.

Depending on location and socio-economics, treating childhood cancer looks different for many families. In Washington, organizations are cognizant of this gap and are aiming to eliminate barriers for these families by increasing access to resources.

In Niger State, not all health clinics are treated equally, but one in the Beji village, Bosso Local Government Area (LGA) acts as a model for other healthcare providers to follow. From proactively educating patients about HIV to offering services most rural health clinics fail to offer, the Beji Primary Health Centre (PHC) "provides all the services a PHC is meant to deliver."

When people don't show up for an appointment, it can cost hospitals a lot of money and also unnecessarily increase wait times for other patients. A hospital in London is trying to reduce both the cost and wait problems by using artificial intelligence to predict which patients are most likely to be no-shows.

A collaborative of California hospitals has developed standard procedures for situations that threaten a mother’s life during childbirth as well as a “toolkit” of everything staff need for a rapid response. As a result, maternal death rates fell by 55% over the first seven years of the collaborative.

The prognosis for sickle cell patients has decreased over the past few decades due to the rise of the opioid crisis, lack of information, and race disparities in health care. Vichinsky's center, on the other hand, is a specialty clinic that is providing proper care based on proper testing and interventions

Missing a doctor's appointment has a significant cost. Hospitals lose money and doctors lose time that they could be using to attend to other patients. Dr. Alex King believes that through testing and then implementing certain behavioral nudges, hospitals will stop losing as much money and patients will benefit from a better experience.