Healthcare Stewardship: An Eight Point Plan for Change

What is stewardship?
The notion of stewardship is an ethically-driven responsibility for protecting and developing one's limited resources. There is no real ownership of the resources by stakeholders, just borrowing. Therefore, stewardship is the careful and responsible management of borrowed resources that promote people's well being.
What is a steward?
A steward must provide the necessary leadership to establish the rules by which all stakeholders behave in ways that reflect the interests of both public and private sectors. Stewards must then ensure corrective action when behavior by stakeholders becomes aberrant and potentially harmful to the population served.
What is the main goal of Stewardship?
Finally, stewardship's main goal is to help the population being served achieve positive outcomes whilst carefully managing the limited resources available.
Applying stewardship to health care delivery systems.
Applying the concepts of stewardship to present-day issues facing health care delivery systems today creates the careful, well-constructed opportunity of managing borrowed and limited health care resources in a transparent, socially responsible manner. It is with this in mind and using the concept of stewardship as my guiding principle , that I have created an 8-point plan for health care change for our U.S. healthcare delivery system.

My 8-point plan consists of the following:

• Establish a basic healthcare package for all Americans
  

• Move from a sick-care system to a well-care system

• Use evidence-based medicine

• Require insurance companies to put patients first

• Encourage physicians and patients to use healthcare resources wisely

• Get doctors in the trenches involved

• Establish a national database for healthcare information
  

• Create a national agency to promote transparency and accountability regarding healthcare outcomes
  

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I am aware that these are lofty goals. They are all applicable to the current crisis that confronts all the stakeholders of the U.S. healthcare delivery system. Now is the time for a major paradigm shift in healthcare delivery at all levels. It is not too late. It will be too late if we do not change now. After all, it really is about the patient.
Dr. Dale

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