You know the health-care system is screwed up when the head of Pfizer uses a prison analogy to describe the Kafka-esque alienation of going into the hospital for a minor procedure. Speaking at the
Innovation Forum, in New York on Tuesday, Jeff Kindler, Pfizer's chairman and CEO, said his experience evinces many of things that have kept the business of healthcare well behind of consumer markets
in sophistication.
"The very idea of being a patient is anathema," said Kindler. "To people of my generation – the 'me' generation – who like to be in control, the experience
begins with loss of control. First the paperwork, three or four times paperwork has to filled out and given to a succession of strangers. Then they take all of your belongings, they tell you to take
your clothes off, and make you put on a gown that leaves you nearly naked, put in you in very small room, bring you inedible food according to a schedule they determine. And if you try to sleep they
the leave lights on, and do everything they can to make sure you can't. At the end, if you are lucky, they deign to discharge you. Those of us who are boomers entering a period where we will be
drawing the biggest health care expenditure will not put up with this. It's a system so far behind every other industry when it comes to customer control and choice, that the paradigm has to change,
and will change. And I include my industry among guilty party."