The United States Does Not Provide the Best Care for Heart Artery Disease
And It Is Not Even Close!
The most effective care is less expensive care and we spend more for less. We spend 20% of gross domestic product (GDP) on health care. That is one dollar out of every five spent on anything—food, clothing, aircraft carriers, roads, education—everything. It is a crazy outlier compared with other countries. We spend more than twice as much as other developed countries on average. Singapore spends less than five percent on GDP on healthcare and that is no accident.
The way we treat heart artery disease is a great example of the reason for these differences. Most care in other countries is like it was decades ago in the United States. Primary care doctors provide most care in their offices for heart artery disease. In Great Britain, their system is designed to provide (OMT) first for patients with heart artery disease and primary care providers do most of the work. Caths, stents, and cardiologists only get involved if patients with stable heart artery disease continue to have unacceptable levels of chest pain after a reasonable trial of OMT. They spend half of what we do and they live longer.
Singapore takes it one step further. They have one stop primary care clinics called polyclinics. Within those sites, they provide advanced medical home teams focused on hypertension, diabetes, and lipid (cholesterol) treatment. They call these cardiometabolic teams HDL clinics. They spend a little less than five percent of GDP on healthcare. That is one fourth of what we spend and they live longer.
This entire site is designed to help you and your organization understand OMT and produce it for your own benefit and the welfare of those you serve. This is not some pipe dream. It is a policy and system design problem. Think of the impact on our country if we could make widespread availability of OMT a reality in the United States. Think of the reduction in premature death and disability. Think of the impact on budgets at every level in the country. The evidence is clear. We do not provide the best cardiology care and I am fully committed to changing that. Won’t you join me?
And they cover everyone. Private insurance is available in most of these countries. Minorities and disadvantaged populations have the greatest burden of chronic disease and related complications.