What’s more important, your computer’s hardware or its software? You tell me: What’s more important, your heart or your lungs? Obviously, if you’re going to function, you need both. The same is true for electronic medical record (EMR) and electronic health record (EHR) software: Your hardware is mission-critical to the success of your electronic records, and this is not the place to compromise.
Residents in the general surgery program at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., participate in monthly “pizza grand rounds,” in which they discuss ethics-fraught situations they encounter. Some of the situations are the subjects of papers published in Surgery. Here are summaries of a few of those published situations. The papers intentionally do not mention the actions ultimately taken, so that the attention remains on the principles and questions involved.
Have you ever wondered about the reasoning behind hospital discharge paperwork or the requirement that every patient sign a HIPAA form?Here are explanations for some of the health care policies you come across on a daily basis.
Certain well-established care delivery models for otolaryngologists have long defined the specialty. But, like pharmacology, surgical techniques and treatment therapies, practice models evolve. And while traditional models continue to dominate the scope of most otolaryngology practices, the field is seeing a gradual shift to new constructs. Among them…
Six years after balloon sinuplasty was introduced to the otolaryngology community, it remains an evolving technology. “In my opinion, balloon dilatation has great potential, but it’s still trying to find its proper place in the ENT arena,” said Ralph Metson, MD, clinical professor of otology and laryngology at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston.
Otolaryngologists with a desire to broaden their careers beyond traditional medical practice have several options. Programs exist that can open doors into medical leadership, health policy work, clinical and outcomes research and public office. Opportunities are available at all stages of a physician’s career. Here’s a look at a handful of programs that aim to provide physicians with the tools they need to take their careers in a new direction.
In my January 2011 column (“A Seller’s Market: How to prepare your practice for sale to a hospital”), I described the growing trend of physicians selling their practices to hospitals and large health systems and then working for the hospital or health system. This trend is expected to continue in full force through 2012. As I noted in my January article, the physician’s post-sale arrangement is the driver for the growth of the physician’s practice within the hospital or health system.
Close on the heels of the evidence-based medicine movement comes increasing pressure for physicians and health care institutions to develop and implement quality improvement measures that will not only improve quality of care, but also reduce medical costs and provide a way to measure performance by physicians and institutions. Integral to this process is the development of appropriate metrics by which to measure outcomes and physician performance that accurately reflect otolaryngology and its subspecialties. Two sessions at the recent 2011 American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Annual Meeting held here Sept. 13 highlighted issues that are important for otolaryngologists striving to meet the growing demand for quality improvement.
Here’s a telling statistic: The average time patients wait in an office to see an otolaryngologist is 24 minutes, according to Press Ganey Associates, Inc., a South Bend, Ind., health care performance measurement and improvement firm. If that doesn’t sound bad, or if you think your practice exceeds that benchmark, consider that otolaryngology ranked 19th in overall satisfaction among 25 medical specialties measured in Press Ganey’s 2010 Medical Practice Pulse Report.