Tag Archives: Healthcare

The Future of Medical Practice

August 19, 2015Physician StrategiesAccountable Care, Healthcare, Lean Methodology, Medical PracticeIra Nash, MD

I had the opportunity last week to talk and learn about the future of office-based medical practice. The occasion was my participation in a panel discussion sponsored by a manufacturer of equipment for medical offices. A professional facilitator conducted a day-long interactive interview of 6 panelists, strategically selected from non-competing health care markets across the country. We talked about what was going on nationally, regionally and in our own organizations in order to provide a context for the sponsor’s strategic planning.

Much of what we talked about centered on the transition from “volume to value,” the catch-phrase for the movement away from fee-for-service to some form of quality-based payment system. The content of the discussion reminded me of the saying that “the future is already here, it’s just not distributed evenly yet.” Physician leaders from west-coast organizations described a landscape of capitated payments and “accountable care” that we talk a lot about but have not yet lived in a significant way. A representative of an institution in Boston spoke of a more highly consolidated provider community. Those stories were interesting, but not entirely novel. Here are a few things that were:

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Right Call; Wrong Reason

August 4, 2015Cardiovascular Care, Health, In the NewsAmerican College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, Cardiology, Doctor-Patient Relationship, Healthcare, OTC Statins, Statin therapyIra Nash, MD

There were several news stories last week that reported that Pfizer had abandoned its efforts to have its Lipitor brand of atorvastatin made available over the counter, without a prescription. I was never a big fan of OTC statins (more on that later) but I was struck by the reason that Pfizer put out:

The study did not meet its primary objectives of demonstrating patient compliance with the direction to check their low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) level and, after checking their LDL-C level, take appropriate action based on their test results.

Left unstated (and unclear) in this is exactly what the appropriate action was supposed to be. I guess they were implying that patients were supposed to check how they responded to the drug and then figure out if they should keep taking it, change the dose or seek professional advice about next steps.
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Crowdsourcing CPR

June 16, 2015Health, TechnologyApp, Bystander-initiated CPR, Cardiac Arrest, CPR, EMS, Healthcare, Healthcare Technology, Innovation in HealthCare, OHCA, Patient, Smartphone, SMS, TechnologyIra Nash, MD

I have written previously about the potential impact of mobile apps and ubiquitous computing on health and healthcare delivery, but I admit I did not see this one coming. The current issue of The New England Journal of Medicine has a report from a research group in Sweden that developed a system – and tested it in a randomized controlled trial – to use smartphones to alert CPR-trained bystanders when there was a nearby cardiac arrest. This figure from the paper describes how it works:

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Yelp!

June 9, 2015Patient ExperienceHealthcare, Online Rating Sites, Online Reviews, Patient Care, Patient Experience, Performance Ratings, Public Reporting, YelpIra Nash, MD

I have written previously about some “aha moments” that I have had as a clinician, when something that I knew was coming seemed to arrive with a thud in my own practice. I had another one of those moments a couple of weeks ago.

I was finishing up with a new patient, and had explained to him and his wife my assessment and recommendations, and had answered a bunch of questions they had. I was frankly feeling pretty good about how the encounter had gone and as he was walking out of the exam room he said (more or less): “thanks doc; I’m glad I came to see you, and I am going to give you a really nice review on Yelp.” He was not kidding.

I didn’t know quite what to say immediately, but I ended up thanking him (somewhat awkwardly, I suspect) and then recovered enough to tell him that while I would – of course – appreciate a nice review on Yelp, I wanted him to know that he might be getting a patient satisfaction survey in the mail, and I would really appreciate it if he filled it out and sent it back in. Encounter over. New world order in place.

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Mistakes about “Patient Satisfaction”

April 27, 2015Patient ExperienceDoctor-Patient Relationship, Feedback survey, Healthcare, Patient SatisfactionIra Nash, MD

I had two experiences recently that reminded me that many doctors and nurses remain resistant to measuring and improving how patients experience the care we provide. One was a face-to-face discussion with a senior physician. The other was reading an article by a nurse. Both the doctor and the nurse denounced the growing focus on the patient experience by citing the threat to quality of care, and I believe both of them were totally wrong.

The encounter with the physician came as I addressed a group of newly hired physicians. As I typically do in these circumstances, I outlined our Medical Group’s commitment to increasing the visibility of the results of our patient experience surveys. We have been providing our physicians with reports on their patients’ feedback for the better part of a year, and we anticipate posting physician-specific results on our public website within a few months. During the Q&A, one of the physicians objected to the plan, saying that “patients can’t judge the quality of care that we provide.”

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Patient Advocates? Really?

April 20, 2015Health, In the News, Physician StrategiesDoctor-Patient Relationship, Health Technology, Healthcare, Patient, Patient Access, Patient Advocacy, Patient Care, Technology, Telemedicine Practice, Telemedicine services, Texas Medical Association, Texas Medical BoardIra Nash, MD

I was disturbed by a recent article in the New York Times about the Texas Medical Board. The piece described the decision by the Board to sharply curtail the use of telemedicine in the state. Specifically, the Board mandated that telemedicine services could only be provided in the context of a pre-existing patient/physician relationship, and that such a relationship must be established face-to-face, and not via electronic means. According to the Times, the restrictions were strongly supported by the Texas Medical Association.

Sigh.

This seems to me to be a wrongheaded, backward looking and overall pretty lame attempt to stem the inexorable tide of patients and physicians connecting in new ways. I really wish I could believe the Board member who said he voted for the new restriction because he was “terribly, terribly worried about the absence of responsibility and accountability” in electronic encounters. It sounded to me, instead, that he was “terribly, terribly worried” about a new business model for medical care that provides greater convenience and lower cost to patients than traditional office visits.

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Great Doctors of Today and Tomorrow

April 13, 2015Health, OrganizationDoctor-Patient Relationship, Healthcare, Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, Patient-centered care, Rx: Doctors of Tomorrow, Rx: the quiet revolutionIra Nash, MD

I recently wrote about the wonderfully inspirational documentary Rx: The Quiet Revolution, which tells the story of how four different groups are transforming health care for the better. Each group has some pretty amazing physicians who are committed to putting the patient at the center of the system, and they all have a lot to teach the rest of us about truly caring for patients as we “deliver care.” That got me thinking about physicians in our own Health System who are role-models for great care, and also about assuring that future physicians are just as caring and empathetic.

Well, as far as role-models go, it is hard to imagine a better group than the winners of this year’s Patients’ Choice Awards, given to those members of our Medical Group who achieved the highest scores on their patient experience surveys. They are:

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Whose Record Is It?

April 6, 2015Health, Physician Strategies, TechnologyDoctor-Patient Relationship, Electronic Medical Records, Eric Topol, Health, Health Apps, Health Information, Health Technology, Healthcare, iPhone, Medical History, Medical Records, MIT Media Lab, Patient, Steven Keating, TechnologyIra Nash, MD

A recent piece in the New York Times profiled a young man with a remarkable medical history, and an equally remarkable approach to sharing it. I think it raises some profound issues regarding the self-monitoring movement and the “ownership” of patients’ health information, both of which have the potential to change our traditional practices in a big way.

The guy – Steven Keating – is not your average Joe. He is a graduate student at MIT who trained as a mechanical engineer and is working in the cutting-edge MIT Media Lab. He also had a brain tumor the size of a tennis ball. His website hosts all of his medical records, including his pre- and post-op brain scans and, believe it or not, a video of his tumor resection surgery.

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There is Good News Out There

March 31, 2015HealthDoctor, Doctor-Patient Relationship, Health, Healthcare, Patient, Patient-centered care, Physician, Rx: the quiet revolution, Rxfilm.orgIra Nash, MD

I had the good fortune last week to see a screening of excerpts from an extraordinary documentary film that will be shown on PBS television stations in April. The film is called Rx: the quiet revolution and highlights four case studies. Each is an inspiring example of new models of health care delivery that are advancing the “triple aim” of better care for individuals, better health outcomes for communities, and lower costs. Our own remarkable Dr. Jennifer Mieres is the film’s executive producer.

The screening left me inspired and in awe of the great work being done by front line professionals all across the country. It also introduced me to a fabulous metaphor for the importance of engaging patients in their own care.

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Health and Healthcare

March 25, 2015HealthEnvironmentalFactors, Health, Health Outcomes, Healthcare, Healthcare Cost, Socoeconomic statusIra Nash, MD

It has been known for a long time that “healthcare” – all the stuff that we do, prescribe and provide – is a minor determinant of how “healthy” any of us is. Overall health, or more technically, the variability in health outcomes, is much more dependent on the combination of genetics, personal behavior (think smoking and seat belts), environmental factors and socioeconomic status than it is on healthcare.

I was thinking about that when I read in the New York Times about how some healthcare provider systems, driven by the need to cut costs, are starting to address some of the non-medical social needs of their patients. These kinds of innovative community-based interventions started to get traction after they were highlighted by an influential profile by Atul Gawande in the The New Yorker. Their diffusion has been driven by the expansion of novel payment models that have started to reward providers for reducing utilization of services like ER visits and hospitalizations, the very services that they have traditionally been paid for.
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