New Yorker makes piece on health-care costs palatable with people
By Flickr.com user Truthout.org
Atul Gawande
New Yorker writer Atul Gawande, a doctor himself, chronicles efforts in several places to lower health-care costs. In Camden, N.J., he writes about “a strange new approach to health care: to look for the most expensive patients in the system and then direct resources and brainpower toward helping them.”
Today’s Tip: Put faces on the figures, says Gabriel Kahn, professor of professional practice at USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.
“When you can illustrate a compelling statistical case with a human face, you have a winning story,” Gabriel says.
Gabriel, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, made the article a reading assignment for his class the week before
Gabriel Kahn
I contacted him. He says the statistics in the story tell a compelling tale. For instance, 1 percent of the patients in Camden account for 30 percent of the costs; a single patient runs up a $3.5 million tab, he says.
“Just by stopping there, readers and policy makers could jump to a quick and easy conclusion. But then, throughout the story, Gawande introduces us to these patients,” he says. “This adds a new layer of understanding, as we learn just how tricky it is to deliver cost-effective care to the most problematic patients.”
