A parent advises us to listen
My regular readers know how impressed I am with the folks at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. They are fully engaged in process improvement efforts and are always committed to doing better and better.Part of the program is a series of podcasts hosted Dr. Jason Newland (Medical Director, Patient Safety and System Reliability) designed to help keep the staff up to date on latest developments and ideas. Here's the latest one, in which Terrence Gallagher, a parent and member of the Children’s Mercy Family Advisory Board, talks with Jason about his family's experience in the hospital. It comes compl...
Source: Running a hospital - March 6, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
When a cancer center is not one
I don't know who the author of this blog is, but s/he has a thoughtful view of the "business plans" that seem to characterize a lot of cancer centers being set up by hospitals across the country. It's called, "Your cancer center is just a box." Here's the excerpt:I had the opportunity to discuss the idea for a new cancer center with a healthcare system. The team consisted of the CFO and COO, a couple of the medical directors, several VP’s from service lines, and the marketing team.Everyone had their list of all the inputs that they feel needs to be a part of the new cancer center. The technology, the spec...
Source: Running a hospital - March 5, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Robotic surgery: The Sequel?
The first time was such a hit, why not do it again? I refer, of course, to the marketing ploy used by Intuitive Surgical, Inc. when it introduced robotic surgery in the prostatectomy scene. Go with direct-to-consumer advertising to give the impression that the results from robotic surgery are better than from manual laparoscopic surgery. Make sure the early-adopter surgeons are on board and publicly proclaiming their great results. When it comes to men and the functioning of their penises, you can predict the result. Who can argue with that kind of success? The stock market rewarded the ...
Source: Running a hospital - March 4, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Huddling in New York City
It's National Patient Safety Week, and I was honored to be invited to Metropolitan Hospital Center in New York City to give a talk on clinical process improvement. Before that, I had a chance to visit parts of the hospital to see some of their initiatives. Led by Chief of Service Gregory Almond, the Emergency Department has been looking at many of their processes. One of the simplest and most effective steps was a decision to conduct huddles, not just once per day, but every two hours. These might last only two or three minutes, but everyone is involved, including the security folks as well as clin...
Source: Running a hospital - March 4, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
My kind of town, Chicago is.
For those of us in the rest of the country, Chicago has always set a certain standard when it comes to conflicts of interest, and why should health care there be any different? You've been reading about such concerns at the University of Illinois. Now, check out this recent story by Kristen Schorsch and Andrew Wang at Crain's Chicago Business. Does this meet the smell test in your view? An excerpt:For at least 15 years, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Lynn Egan has sat on the boards governing a south suburban hospital while it regularly has hired her brother's law firm. Chicago-based Pretzel &a...
Source: Running a hospital - March 3, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Lessons from the Aga Khan in Canada
One of the world's great leaders is not the head of a national government. He is the leader of a religious faith. The Aga Khan is the spiritual head of the Ismaili Muslims, a Shia sect reaching back to the days of the Prophet Mohamed. In this role, and through the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), he has addressed issues of the elimination of poverty, access to education, and social peace in a pluralist environment. He was recently recognized for this and other accomplishments by being invited to address the Canadian Parliament.The speech is a remarkable exposition of the potential power of pluralism...
Source: Running a hospital - March 3, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
In memoriam: Robert C. Moellering, Jr.
This announcement arrived from Harvard Medical School:Dr. Robert C. Moellering, the HMS Shields Warren-Mallinckrodt Professor of Medical Research and a renowned infectious disease researcher, was physician-in-chief and chair of the Department of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center from 1981 to 2005. He died on Feb. 24, 2014, at the age of 77.Dr. Moellering made major advances in the investigation, treatment and prevention of infectious diseases, in particular studying the mechanisms of antibiotic action and bacterial resistance to antimicrobial agents. His work led to the development of laboratory tests tha...
Source: Running a hospital - March 2, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
A matter of public trust
Conclusion I for one believe it would take a superhuman effort on the part of the Dean to recuse himself from every financial analysis, purchase decision, research decision, and educational decision at the University of Illinois that has the potential to involve Novartis or its competitors. As noted, I am in no way asserting or implying that this superb physician and researcher has improperly benefited or that he has failed to disclose under state law or University policy. What I am saying is that both institutions require a person to exercise a proper duty of care and loyalty to each of them. It is incon...
Source: Running a hospital - March 1, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Hospital rankings: I wasn't cynical enough.
Whenever I think I am too cynical about the business of health care, I learn something that makes me understand that I am not cynical enough. You may recall my 2011 column about the silliness of the hospital rankings published in one of the national magazines. I said:US News needs to stop relying on unsupported and unsupportable reputation, often influenced by anecdote, personal relationships and self-serving public appearances.So, you can imagine my pleasure in learning of the latest rigorous advance in the methodology applied by the magazine, a partnership with the physician network, Doximity. This will cer...
Source: Running a hospital - March 1, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
They should have been given a Miranda warning
Sometimes the exact words that people use to blame others serve as the most powerful indictment of their own ineptitude and culpability. Imagine if you were to read the following statements from the owner/governing body of any non-profit hospital in America, describing a situation that lasted almost a decade:[The hospital owner's president] blamed the facility’s debt on administrators who were not forthcoming. “We were not getting full disclosure. We would ask the questions and we were not getting a full response.”The hospital’s deficit began in 2006 and . . . its administrators did not reveal it despite bei...
Source: Running a hospital - February 28, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
In Sickness As In Health
I've just read an excellent book called In Sickness As In Health: Helping couples cope with the complexities of illness, by Barbara Kivowitz and Roanne Weisman. I recommend it highly. It serves an an excellent reference to people who find they have to deal with the acute or chronic illness of one of the partners in a marriage or other close relationship. Beyond exploring the three phases of such situations--crisis, balancing act, and regaining equilibrium--it offers thoughtful commentary about a lot of related issues. There was one that I found particularly perceptive. You've been informed by your d...
Source: Running a hospital - February 26, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
SNFs on WIHI
Madge Kaplan writes:The next WIHI broadcast — Mobilizing Skilled Nursing Facilities to Reduce Avoidable Rehospitalizations: New Imperatives and New Models — will take place on Thursday, February 27, from 2 to 3 PM ET, and I hope you'll tune in.Our guests will include:Laurie Herndon, MSN, GNP-BC, Director of Clinical Quality, Massachusetts Senior Care FoundationDavid Gifford, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President, Quality and Regulatory Affairs, American Health Care Association Annette Crawford, Administrator, Stafford Healthcare at RidgemontMarie Schall, Director, Institute for Healthcare Improvement ...
Source: Running a hospital - February 26, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Mayhew's "Wounded" as finalist for the Wellcome Book prize 2014
You no longer have to take just my word for it. Now Emily Mayhew's book Wounded is on the short list for the Wellcome Book Prize for 2014. For those not familiar with this prize, here's the description:The Wellcome Book Prize is an annual award, open to new works of fiction or nonfiction. To be eligible for entry, a book should have a central theme that engages with some aspect of medicine, health or illness. This can cover many genres of writing – including crime, romance, popular science, sci fi and history.At some point, medicine touches all our lives. Books that find stories in those brushes with me...
Source: Running a hospital - February 25, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
There is a non-zero chance of problems
In contrast, in a under-performing hospital, they would say, "The data are wrong," and "Our patients are sicker," and then give up.Back in 2009, I wrote: The fear of transparency clouds all. That still applies in all too many places. (Source: Running a hospital)
Source: Running a hospital - February 25, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Is there an app for this?
An article in Nature reports:The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services after a French researcher discovered that the works were computer-generated nonsense. Over the past two years, computer scientist Cyril Labbé of Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, has catalogued computer-generated papers that made it into more than 30 published conference proceedings between 2008 and 2013. Sixteen appeared in publications by Springer, which is headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany, and more than 100 were published by the Institute of Electri...
Source: Running a hospital - February 25, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
