David Walter Edsall
Republican

banner-personalOffice Sought: Representative – District 132
Age: 68
Occupation: Physician MD Anesthesiologist
Education: Northfiled Mount Hermon School, University of Vermont Medical school, US Army
Family: Maried Four maried children, eight grandchildren
Hometown: Ellsworth

Political experience

As Anesthesia chairperson of a 4 hospital medical system, internal politics was present. I instituted the first successful use of computer records in anesthesiology in the country. It had a very positive acceptance with none against it out of 21. This was successful for ten years and I was recruited to come back when I left to develop a career in medical informatics. That was a political failure due to lack of support of the higher ups. People do not want measurements of their results. But once they have it, they see themselves improving. Making fewer errors feels good. Burnout is less. Computer solutions must reduce record keeping time, focus on diagnostic and therapeutic decisions and improve results. Obama care ruins our medical system. Wrong focus- cost and wrong solution- access resulting in a huge cost.
Politically, I focus on where the problem is and what will solve it. The gun, and narcotic issues are the wrong focus and solution.

Why are you running for office?

We are upset about 280 annual opioid deaths much of which is from medical errors: Correct diagnosis, Correct therapy administered Correctly should be the focus. This is only a small part of the much larger problem of 1200 Maine deaths and 10,000 serious PREVENTABLE injuries from medical errors. The legislature is rightly concerned and there are many examples of good bills that they can pass but practicing medicine by legislation is the wrong approach. The $1T spent annually on our errors can be eliminated by the practice of Quality Improvement, usually also done incorrectly. The cost of poor quality is not understood. I have been an expert in this area since I took a course from W Edwards Demming in 1990. I have lectured in over 30 states, 5 countries and many medical societies. I practice what I preach with some of the best results in Anesthesiology for my department when I was chTairperson. Bad quality causes burnout, stress, lawsuits, and expensive treatments. The USA is #1 in quality. It is false to say we are #20. We are #20-30 in health of the population but in every measure of healthcare we are usually #1 i.e. Wound infections after surgery are 1.3 %. No other country is < 2%. For cancer and heart attack survival and dozens of other measures of care, we are #1,2 or3, usually #1. The only other way to control cost is rationing which is what the rest of the world does and Obama care is trying to do. Laws should Require broad solutions like measured outcomes not specific treatments like Naloxone. Very few walk the quality walk. All talk the talk. You don't need to know if a surgeon washes his/her hands. You NEED to know the infection rate. You may want to know a doctor's patient satisfaction score, but you NEED to know the Doctor's diagnostic success rate. Few MD's can tell you their rate which should require. The Medical Boards should attention to this! Their duty is to prevent harm

 

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