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
Keep Mama Happy
“We’ve gotta keep Mama happy” I hear this from time to time from pediatricians. The idea is that if we don’t give a mother what she’s looking for, she’ll walk. As a resident I had a preceptor who loved to pull me aside to teach me the ‘inside baseball’ of pediatrics. One day after prescribing antibiotics to a child with a runny nose, he remarked with a wink and ... Continue Reading about Keep Mama Happy
CNN, the Mayo Clinic and Healthcare’s Dialog Double Standard
The CNN Mayo Clinic hatchet job illustrates a dilemma faced by health care organizations. Specifically, the position hospitals find themselves in when wrongly accused of patient mistreatment. Those connected with the alleged mistreatment have the ability to say what they want without accountability. But health privacy law prevents hospitals from publicly defending ... Continue Reading about CNN, the Mayo Clinic and Healthcare’s Dialog Double Standard