Businessman David Goldhill's father died of a hospital-related infection. His book Catastrophic Care argues that the American health care system needs to become more consumer-driven. <\/p>\n
Businessman David Goldhill's father died of a hospital-related infection. His book Catastrophic Care argues that the American health care system needs to become more consumer-driven. <\/p>\n
In 2007, David Goldhill's father, in good overall health, checked into the hospital with a minor case of pneumonia. Within a few days, he developed sepsis, then a wave of secondary infections. A few weeks after entering the hospital and the day after his 83rd birthday, he died. <\/p>\n
Shortly after, Goldhill read an article that changed the course of his life. He learned just how common hospital infection deaths like his father's are: An estimated 100,000 happen in the U.S. each year. Goldhill also learned just how simple it can be to prevent them in some cases as simple as regulating physician hand-washing. <\/p>\n
So Goldhill set out to learn as much as he could about our convoluted, insurance-based health care system. And he found that much of it is broken. <\/p>\n
His new book is called Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father and How We Can Fix it. Goldhill first wrote about the experience in a 2009 Atlantic cover story. <\/p>\n
As president of the Game Show Network, Goldhill approaches the topic from a business perspective. He believes patients should take on more of a consumer role. <\/p>\n
\"It seemed strange that any industry could have a relatively low-cost way of significantly improving its customer experience,\" he tells weekends on All Things Considered host Jacki Lyden, \"and it would be hard to get the industry to adopt it.\" <\/p>\n
Goldhill says the true cost of our health care is massive and it is hidden. <\/p>\n
He looks at a typical entry-level employee earning about $35,000 a year. He finds that over the course of her lifetime she will pay more than $1 million to support her and her family's health care. And that's if there is zero growth in costs and if she avoids major illness. <\/p>\n
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Father's Death Spurs Son To Tackle Health Care<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Businessman David Goldhill's father died of a hospital-related infection. His book Catastrophic Care argues that the American health care system needs to become more consumer-driven Continue reading