About this item

An award-winning physician-writer exposes how pervasive cracks in the health care system cost us time, energy, and lives -- and how we can fix them.There's an unspoken assumption when we go to see a doctor: the doctor knows our medical story and is making decisions based on that story. But reality frequently falls short. Medical records vanish when we switch doctors. Critical details of life-saving treatment plans get lost in muddled electronic charts. The doctors we see change according to specialty, hospital shifts, or an insurer's whims. Physician Ilana Yurkiewicz calls this phenomenon fragmentation, and, she argues, it's the central failure of health care today.In this gripping narrative from medicine's front lines, Yurkiewicz reveals how a system that doesn't talk to itself puts insupportable burdens on physicians, patients, and caregivers, forcing them to heroic lengths to hold the pieces together -- barely.