Malcolm Gladwell on health care reform: Picasso or Cezanne?

Gladwell is right on the money with his approach to reform:

He described Picasso as a conceptual innovator who revolutionized art with his transformative ideas. “He had big, bold, grand ideas,” Gladwell said, which the artist then executed fairly quickly. Cezanne, on the other hand, was an experimental painter who used a trial-and-error approach and went about his work slowly. Gladwell said the two approaches of imposing genius in the world, which are profoundly dissimilar in nature, could be applied to any business or reform.

“We are in danger of approaching the healthcare problem like it’s a Picasso problem and not a Cezanne problem,” Gladwell said.

Gladwell advocated for the abandonment of the notion of the grand, transformative idea, of being able to describe the plan of action and then attacking it. “With really complex problems, you can’t start with a grand idea,” he said. “You need a trial-and-error method.”

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4. How should health care be reformed? The inauguration edition of Grand Rounds gives us answers
5. Health care reform: The uncivil war dividing America
6. Universal care, increasing patient safety, and tort reform, all in one fell swoop?
7. Health care reform, back of the napkin version

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