Future of care on 'Boston Med'
"Boston Med"
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Before "ObamaCare" came into existence, Massachusetts signed into law a mandate for universal health insurance coverage.
Premiering Thursday, June 24, the new ABC News documentary series "Boston Med" spends four months inside three top institutions Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's, and Massachusetts General -- and gets a peek into a possible future.
"It's foreshadowing," says executive producer Terence Wrong. "One thing it means is the number of people who seek medical care is much greater when they have this universal insurance."
Wrong says the Boston emergency rooms feel the crunch from walk-in patients, some of whom could see their primary physicians -- if they had them.
"I don't want to say they're lazy," Wrong says, "but they don't have a regular doctor. When they get sick, they reach for the closest solution, and that most often is the emergency or outpatient care.
"That's a complaint about Massachusetts health care is that you've given a whole lot more people reason to come to the hospital but not actually saved any money in terms of how you deliver the care."
More patients would seem to require Boston to have more doctors and nurses -- "which they don't," says Wrong.
Another aspect of "Boston Med" is to show the hardship and sacrifices of residents in training.
"Some of the young residents are $300,000 in debt," Wrong says. Cutting health care costs might also mean that repayment is now much harder.
Then there are the patients, including a story Wrong tells about one who came into the ER horribly injured.
"No one can imagine they will survive, let along have anything like a normal life," he says. "Now here we are, going to air nearly 18 months later, and we actually show that, say, father of three young children, sailing with his children off Cape Cod, back in the fullness of his life.
"That happens in 39 minutes on our show, and to make that happen, we had to stay with that story 18 months."
Premiering Thursday, June 24, the new ABC News documentary series "Boston Med" spends four months inside three top institutions Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's, and Massachusetts General -- and gets a peek into a possible future.
"It's foreshadowing," says executive producer Terence Wrong. "One thing it means is the number of people who seek medical care is much greater when they have this universal insurance."
Wrong says the Boston emergency rooms feel the crunch from walk-in patients, some of whom could see their primary physicians -- if they had them.
"I don't want to say they're lazy," Wrong says, "but they don't have a regular doctor. When they get sick, they reach for the closest solution, and that most often is the emergency or outpatient care.
"That's a complaint about Massachusetts health care is that you've given a whole lot more people reason to come to the hospital but not actually saved any money in terms of how you deliver the care."
More patients would seem to require Boston to have more doctors and nurses -- "which they don't," says Wrong.
Another aspect of "Boston Med" is to show the hardship and sacrifices of residents in training.
"Some of the young residents are $300,000 in debt," Wrong says. Cutting health care costs might also mean that repayment is now much harder.
Then there are the patients, including a story Wrong tells about one who came into the ER horribly injured.
"No one can imagine they will survive, let along have anything like a normal life," he says. "Now here we are, going to air nearly 18 months later, and we actually show that, say, father of three young children, sailing with his children off Cape Cod, back in the fullness of his life.
"That happens in 39 minutes on our show, and to make that happen, we had to stay with that story 18 months."
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