Villages Without Doctors

For the next few weeks, I’ll be writing about an idea that can make people healthier while bringing down health care costs, both in poor countries and in the United States.

The strategy is to move beyond doctors — to take the work of health care and shift down from doctors and nurses to lay people, peers and family.  In the United States and other wealthy countries, lay people can fill in the gaps in left by doctors’ care.  In poor countries, people with no or little formal medical training are successfully substituting for doctors and nurses.