843 New Visions for Health Care

Tune in to our radio show on your local public radio station, or sign up for the podcast and listen at your leisure. Here’s what it’s about:
The Veterans Health Administration is an enormous bureaucracy, but it is striving to become a leader in personalized, patient-centered medicine. Can the VA provide cost effective care that also pioneers patient safety and pays attention to veterans’ values?
One factor in the VA’s success so far is that it is a single-payer system. Although this idea has been roundly criticized in the debate over health care reform, the state of Vermont has recently adopted legislation that will initiate a single payer and cover everyone in the state by 2017. A family practice doctor in Montpelier made a heroic effort to help get this bill enacted. Why?
Guests: Tracy Gaudet, MD, is Director of the Office of Patient-Centered Care and Cultural Transformation at the Veterans Health Administration. Before joining the VHA, she was Executive Director of Duke Integrative Medicine and Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Duke University Medical Center.
Deborah Richter, MD, is a family practice physician in Montpelier, Vermont. She belongs to a nonprofit organization called Vermont Healthcare for All, which has led the way to the legislation creating guaranteed health care coverage for Vermonters.
The podcast of this program will be available the Monday after the broadcast date. The show can be streamed online from this site and podcasts can be downloaded for free for six weeks after the date of broadcast. After that time has passed, digital downloads are available for $2.99. CDs may be purchased at any time after broadcast for $9.99.