Reporting a physician to the NPDB is not to be taken lightly, and hospitals must understand when it is appropriate to do so. In some cases, a hospital can mar a physician's career by reporting him or her for a non-reportable event, such as failing to meet the requirements for ...
Back in 2007, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement created the Triple Aim, which challenges organizations to provide better patient care, achieve population health, and lower costs. Since then, several areas have been identified as barriers to achieving the Triple Aim. First on that list is...
Many states protect medical staff peer review information from discovery, meaning that a plaintiff's attorney cannot use it against individuals who participate in peer review. The purpose of the protection is to allow medical staffs to discuss peer review issues candidly and...
Because I travel a lot, I receive numerous surveys and comment cards from airlines, car rental companies, and hotels. I almost never take the time to complete them unless something unusual has happened. It would just take too much time to do all of them. Most of us do not take...
The Superior Court in Maricopa County, AZ, overturned a trial court's decision barring a defendant hospital from communicating with its employees who had treated or were treating the plaintiff patient in a medical malpractice case.
There’s no doubt about it—the healthcare industry needs a makeover. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and other leaders in the healthcare realm have developed a handful of models that could hold some promise for reducing healthcare costs and improving the quality of healthcare for...
My first consulting assignment involved a surgeon on a small medical staff with chronic depression. He would experience meltdowns in the middle of the night when nurses attempted to rouse him from a fitful sleep. On two occasions he slammed down the phone after being asked to...
For more than two decades, there has been a theme emerging as physician leaders face the challenge presented by divergent practices in reimbursement: Misaligned incentives seems to be the diagnosis.
Pressure continues to mount on hospitals to improve their patient satisfaction scores, particularly through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, or...
Hospital leaders wouldn't think to ask a private practice physician to work in the hallway—an office is non-negotiable. Yet, hospitals frequently ask hospitalists to do just that. Anecdotal evidence suggests that few hospitals have allotted appropriate office space for hospitalist...
