“We don’t know how to measure what we care about so we care about what we measure.” This quote comes from Chris Dancy in his provocative book, Don’t Unplug. While it references technology, the quote captures the problem with modern medicine’s obsession with numbers. Measuring to manage is okay as long as we’re measuring the right stuff. Usually we’re not ... Continue Reading about Measure What You Care About
How Not to Teach Social Media
The early days of Twitter and Facebook were all about early adopters giving ‘social media talks.’ For many of us these amounted to cheerleading over shiny new objects - fast moving talks that subtly oversold social media. Conversions from non-believers to believers were less frequent than we liked. We told ourselves folks 'just didn't get it.' Speaking for myself, I ... Continue Reading about How Not to Teach Social Media
High-Deductible Insurance – 3 Consequences to Patient Care
Possibly the biggest change that I’ve seen in clinical practice is the rising burden of health care costs on patients. On a daily basis I have difficult conversations with families as they face the grim reality of health costs offset in their direction. It’s captured pretty nicely here in this Bloomberg piece, Doctors are Fed Up with Being Turned Into Debt Collectors. ... Continue Reading about High-Deductible Insurance – 3 Consequences to Patient Care
The Zero-Sum Medical Day
Physicians are under increasing demand to achieve the Clinical Trifecta of productivity, quality and satisfaction. As pressure for scaling efficiency mounts, a growing number of stakeholders are charged with keeping doctors compliant and productive. Each stakeholder is typically only with their task - their spreadsheet, graph, email query, documentation correction, ... Continue Reading about The Zero-Sum Medical Day
Data Confrontation – Who is Responsible for a Patient’s Data?
This week marks the release of the Apple Watch Series 4 with the capability of EKG. From their wrist, users can record a rhythm that they can send to their doctor. Through most of history, data like EKGs were collected by hospitals and health professionals. This changes things. As watches move from fitness trackers to medical devices, questions emerge such as, what ... Continue Reading about Data Confrontation – Who is Responsible for a Patient’s Data?
The Health System Transformation Space
The world is changing faster than hospitals and health systems can keep up. Progress has outpaced the capacity of 20th century operations. But the problem is that there’s no one dedicated to helping hospital systems respond to change. The academics are preoccupied with writing articles. Clinicians are busy with service delivery. Administrators are trying to ... Continue Reading about The Health System Transformation Space