The U.S. health system is in dire need of dramatic reforms to put patients first, most notably by ensuring that everyone in this country has a formally designated primary care physician to help monitor, navigate, and oversee their medical treatment.
That is the latest recommendation of yet another blue-chip experts’ group: the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, a self-described collective of “private, nonprofit institutions that provide expert advice on some of the most pressing challenges facing the nation and the world.”
An expert panel from the academies, after deep research and in issuing a 448-page report, has expressed disappointment that policy makers seemingly ignored the 1996 recommendations of its independent, nonpartisan sister group, the respected Institute of Medicine. The institute offered a blueprint for moving Americans into an approach, built on primary care, that has shown major benefits elsewhere in the world.