The oldest exposed reef fossils in the world lie in Isle LaMotte, Vermont, where they came to rest 480 million years ago after one of the most violent tectonic plate shifts the Earth’s surface ever experienced. The fossils originated in Africa.
A less violent but equally destructive disruption is occurring in health care. Here in Vermont, we’re watching the slow-motion implosion of our health care system driven by several mounting pressures: lack of available staffing at all levels, an aging and increasingly obese patient population, a global pandemic that has killed more Americans than the 1918 flu (from which we seemed to have learned nothing), lack of vision and leadership, and the overwhelming inertia baked into a system that has evolved to protect the interests and privilege of all who profit from it, rather than delivering on its mission of population health and care.