A fraud, but not a villain. What about us?
Bruce Ramshaw, a surgeon from Daytona, FL, has spent a lot of his career exploring the ramifications of complexity science. In this article in General Surgery News, he offers some observations worthy of attention.He starts with a story:In September 2010, a 44-year-old academic superstar was named dean of the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences faculty at Tilburg University in Tilburg, the Netherlands. Just one year earlier, this acclaimed social psychology researcher, Diederik Stapel, received the Career Trajectory Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. Stapel moved to Tilburg Un...
Source: Running a hospital - March 16, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Saskatchewan leaders take sides on Lean
This article in the StarPhoenix summarizes the dueling points of view:Under fire from the Opposition, Premier Brad Wall defended the provincial government's spending on the "lean" health quality management system. "The overall amount is a significant investment and when we made the decision in cabinet, we're a government that looks at these things from the perspective of thrift and value and it was a long discussion."The premier said the province is recouping its investment."We sought the very best and made the difficult decision to do this because of the dividends. What we're able to show is that between the ...
Source: Running a hospital - March 16, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Seeing America, the old way
Lee Crites has recently begun a nine month journey walking across America. When his three daughters asked why, he gave ten reasons:10. I want to go back to San Francisco and I'm tired of driving.9. I need to lose 20 pounds.8. There are millions of great people out there and I want to meet some of them where they live. 7. "A virtue to cover a multitude of sins" - Horace Kephart 6. My comfort zone has gotten too comfortable. 5. Walking is good medicine. 4. I have helped a lot of patients relearn how to walk in my physical therapist assisting role. Not all have been successful. I walk for those who cannot. 3. To remin...
Source: Running a hospital - March 15, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
A plane crash every day
Every day that has passed as they search for the wreckage of the Malaysia Airline plane, another plane has crashed in America. Well, better put, the equivalent number of people have died every day from preventable harm in America's hospitals.Which story gets our attention? Which is the greater public health hazard?Remember Captain Sullenberger's words as he remarked on the scattered application of systemic approaches to safety in the health care industry: "We have islands of excellence in a sea of systemic failures. We need to teach all practitioners the science of safety.""I wish we were less patient. W...
Source: Running a hospital - March 13, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Inspiring
I missed this story a couple of years ago about a boy from Sierra Leone, although it was just recently reposted. If you haven't seen it, I think you'll be inspired when you watch the video. (Source: Running a hospital)
Source: Running a hospital - March 13, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Hypertension guidelines on WIHI
Madge Kaplan writes:The next WIHI broadcast — How High? How Low? Shared Decision Making Amidst Shifting (Hypertension) Guidelines — will take place on Thursday, March 13, from 2 to 3 PM ET, and I hope you'll tune in. This is a special collaboration with the Journal of the American Medical Association that we're calling JAMA on WIHI: An Online Audio Forum on Quality.Our guests will include:Craig W. Robbins, MD, MPH, Medical Director, Center for Clinical Information Services, Kaiser Permanente Care Management InstituteDon Goldmann, MD, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, Institute for Healthcare Improvem...
Source: Running a hospital - March 12, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
In the streets? No, in the gutter.
I have reached a new level of disgust with regard to the international political activities of Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization of American. Recall that HWZOA has overseen the systematic failure of Hadassah Medical Organization. But rather than acknowledging any flaws in its own governance and oversight of this crown jewel of Israel's health care system, it seeks to impose blame on the government of Israel. While there are clearly policy changes that are needed to help the role of non-profit hospitals like Hadassah, it is totally inappropriate for the American Jewish community to expend political cap...
Source: Running a hospital - March 11, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Time to undo the readmission penalty damage to safety net hospitals
Conclusions—Given that many poor-performing hospitals also have fewer resources, they may suffer disproportionately from financial penalties for high readmission rates. As we seek to improve care for patients with heart failure, we should ensure that penalties for poor performance do not worsen disparities in quality of care. (Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes. 2011;4:53-59.)To the best of my knowledge, these concerns were never addressed by the federal government, or by state governments applying similar standards through Medicaid.Now comes this thoughtful argument by Richard Fuller at 3M Clinical and Econo...
Source: Running a hospital - March 11, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Will it be a whitewash?
In five days, the president of the University of Illinois is due to receive the report from the Vice President for Research that will evaluate the circumstances surrounding the use of the University's name and reputation in support of a private medical equipment supplier. Recall that the VP was charged to "conduct a methodical assessment of policies, guidelines, procedures and practices, and where corrective changes are required we will take the appropriate action."As I have noted:Karisa King and Jodi Cohen at the Chicago Tribune have published an excellent story about how some doctors and admininstrators decide...
Source: Running a hospital - March 10, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Let's spend time calling instead of coding
Way back in 2008, my friend and colleague John Halamka wrote this post about the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 codes, the codes that are used to record clinical activity for the purpose of reimbursement by Medicare and other insurers. John is the unquestioned national expert in health care IT systems. At the time, he was "enthusiastic about the adoption of new standards that enhance semantic interoperability. The use of modern vocabulary standards such as ICD-10 improve administrative efficiency, enhance the ability of decision support systems to enforce guidelines, and enable a more granular reimbursement process...
Source: Running a hospital - March 9, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Three wrongs don't make a right, even for Deans
This article, for example, was published in 2012 in the Cornell Daily Sun:In addition to receiving an academic salary from Cornell, WCMC Dean Laurie Glimcher receives six-figure salaries annually from pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb and the Waters Corporation, a laboratory equipment company, according to the companies’ filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. There are no allegations that Glimcher has used her position at Weill to do anything illegal or to steer the school to purchase those companies’ products.But leading research ethicists say such close financial ties to big busine...
Source: Running a hospital - March 8, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Jubilee Project presents The Mixtapes
The Jubilee Project continues to provide us all with heartwarming videos. Check out this one. Or watch it here: (Source: Running a hospital)
Source: Running a hospital - March 8, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Addressing Patient Wait Times with Systems Thinking
MIT SDM Systems Thinking Webinar SeriesAddressing Patient Wait Times with Systems ThinkingAli Kamil, SDM '12, MIT SDM and Harvard Kennedy School of Government Graduate Student Dmitriy Lyan, SDM '11, Senior Product Manager, Amazon Web ServicesDate: March 10, 2014Time: Noon – 1 p.m. EDTFree and open to allRegisterAbout the PresentationThis webinar will present findings from a 12-month study that explores the use of systems thinking to address the prolonged and highly variable patient wait times. The research was conducted at the LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) in Hyderabad, India, which has provided care for ...
Source: Running a hospital - March 7, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Maybe they thought it was 267,153 kangaroos
Federico Girosi, Associate Professor in Population Health at the School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney, posted the following story on Facebook:We just submitted a paper to BMC Public Health. This was their reply: "Thank you for your recent submission of the manuscript "People with multiple unhealthy lifestyles are less likely to consult primary healthcare. Evidence from 267,153 Australians". We have now looked over your manuscript and we feel that it is out of scope for the journal. However, we do feel that the manuscript may be suited for another of our journals, BMC Veterinary Research." (Source: Running a hospital)
Source: Running a hospital - March 7, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
How not to do fund-raising
I suppose it's not fair to pile on two years later, but I was taken aback when I recently came across this solicitation video produced by Parkland Memorial Hospital as it was engaged in a major capital campaign. It stands as an example of poor taste in fund-raising, with regard to both the imagery and words chosen. When we consider that the hospital obviously spent a lot of money on this production as it was going through major turmoil, in terms of its quality of patient care, we really have to question the priorities of those then in charge.Here's the video: (Source: Running a hospital)
Source: Running a hospital - March 7, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
