The latest episode of EconTalk is a conversation with Arnold Kling on how to improve health care outcomes in hospitals. Given how complex the human body is, specialization doesn’t always improve health–the heart doctor worries about a heart attack and neglects the impact of bed rest on infection. Arnold wants to see better planning within hospitals to take account of the complexity of the human body. I wonder why the incentives aren’t in place for that to happen already. Arnold has lots of interesting observations about our current system and what it does, both good and bad, to human beings.
I am working on interviewing a hospital administrator in the fall.
