Words to the WHYs on Healthcare

If issues in health care leave you asking “WHY?,” I invite you to be part of these short, monthly lessons on the fundamentals of healthcare and how the pandemic interacts with these forces.  My goal for these discussions is to sharpen your insight and connect your day-to-day work and/or policy interests to the bigger picture, or at least lessen your frustration! If you have any questions, feel free to email me: daltonc@wfu.edu

Pandemic Minute: Besting Testing 

he newest COVID-19 strain brings us back to the importance of testing in understanding and monitoring the pandemic.  Early pandemic standouts, such as Korea, opted to centralize testing.  An early U.S. innovator,Massachusetts General Hospital, channeled these insights into their Personal Protective Booths- little “phone booths” to hold clinicians while administering mass testing. 

Why is this booth (economically) cool?? 










1. PPE was limited, so the booth uses scarce resources efficiently through economies of scale- where a single producer with larger volumes produces lower costs per unit. 

2. It maximizes learning-by-doing, which you might identify with in your own pandemic life, as you perfected home cooking or learned new routines.  The clinicians became more adept with new tests through higher patient volumes. 

Editions of "Pandemic Minute" 

• Missed Visits by Medical Specialty (Jan 2022)
• Besting Testing (Dec 2021)
• The Pandemic and Shortages (Nov 2021)
• Vaccine Boosters (Oct 2021)
• Infections and Externalities (Sept 2021)

Insurance Series

• Part I- Why it Exists
• Part II- Insurer's Perspective
• Part III- Incentives
• Part IV- Rising Costs