Care in Picture
(in collaboration with Marjet Veldhuis)

Care in the picture, from problem to solution

Marjet Veldhuis  

April 10, 2023

 

Recently I was a guest at EenVandaag to speak about the time and costs of bureaucracy in healthcare, the purple crocodile.

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Reducing bureaucracy

First, let's get the numbers straight.

Assuming a very cautious 20 hours of work per week and an hourly wage of €20, the key figures for all 1.4 million healthcare professionals together are as follows:

40% of the working time means 500 million hours per year, costs € 10 billion per year

In perspective: this is more than the total costs of mental health care, general practitioner care and paramedicine (physiotherapy, remedial therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, dietetics) combined per year (4.6/3.5/1.0 billion, respectively). By reducing the bureaucracy from 40 to 20% (and 10% is really very realistic), much more care time is immediately available and multiple problems can be solved in one go.

The bureaucracy in turn is only part of the money-consuming and ever-increasing group of workers ON care who determine, manage, advise, monitor and earn from the work for an ever-shrinking group of workers IN care.

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Deserving of care out of harm's way

The earnings models of the workers ON care are now numerous and (partly) known. For example, I describe them in my book, Mirjam de Rijk wrote last week's article about 11 revenue models in healthcare (De Groene Amsterdammer) and yet the attention for all costs (which you and I pay together) remains minimal. @EllenvanHeijst (Visualpower050) shows the images of the problem and the solution (future situation, right) in the accompanying illustration at a glance.

'Care' is so much more than a container term. When shouting: 'healthcare is becoming unaffordable', 'healthcare costs are skyrocketing' and 'healthcare must be cut back', too many people wrongly assume that this is at the expense of healthcare workers and the patient. The workers ON care remain out of sight and out of harm's way. They do not name themselves in the many problem analyzes that already exist. Naming is, after all, acknowledging that they themselves are part of the problem and that they have to cut their own flesh.

 

Then what?

In the interest of themselves, patients and citizens, it is now time for healthcare workers to reclaim their own autonomy and expertise, turn the tables.