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January 27, 2010 -- Hospital Impact has been ranked one of the top 50 healthcare blogs by Wikio.
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by Wendy Johnson
Today's wired healthcare era is exploding in knowledge. Too bad so many healthcare systems are so "fragmented and disorganized" that they're unable to absorb it.
"The result is chaos," says Thomas H. Lee, network president of Partners HealthCare System, in Boston and professor at Harvard Medical School, in a thought-provoking article that appears in the Harvard Business Review magazine.
Now that health reform has passed I was reflecting again on the question:
"Is healthcare a right or a privilege?"
In line with President Kennedy's famous inaugural address from 1961 there is a third option: "Healthcare is an obligation."
We as individuals are obligated to take care of our own health. To eat right, to exercise right, to get enough sleep, to find healthy options to relieve stress, to stop smoking, to drink alcohol in moderation, to develop healthy relationships, to maintain an optimal weight, to ensure optimal conditioning prior to engaging in sports, to wear a bike helmet when riding a bike, to wear a safety belt when in a car, to follow scientific-based prevention guidelines best suited to you as an individual, to make one's health a priority, to develop and manage a healthcare-related budget and so much more.
Invariably, as the time draws near for me to post my monthly blog, someone helps me find the inspiration and make the time. This month, credit goes to Thomas Dahlborg, whose most recent entry recounted the difficult tradeoffs of a primary care physician who feels more like a production worker than healer.
I trained at a time when medicine was a calling and enjoy working as a locum tenens surgeon in New England. I empathize with the physicians Mr. Dahlborg describes, who fit Morrison's definition of hamster healthcare, running faster just to stay in the same place.
In an article about workplace burnout, I recounted the story of a cardiothoracic surgeon who wrote:
By Thomas Dahlborg
Lack of access to primary care is an issue throughout the country and especially so in rural areas. In 2008-2009, the Daniel Hanley Center for Health Leadership brought together leaders from across the state of Maine to understand the key motivators and incentives that will improve primary care physician recruitment and retention in rural areas.
This collaborative group of leaders reviewed the strengths and limitations of historical data obtained through focus groups, survey tools, and interviews. They then sought an innovative way to hear a fresh perspective and selected the Voice of the Customer (VOC) as the tool to explore this challenge in depth.
by Wendy Johnson
Now that you're all back to the weekly grind following a jam-packed HIMSS10 week of networking, learning and checking out the latest health IT products, I wanted thank the many Hospital Impact readers who attended our HIMSS events, including our first-ever HIMSS executive breakfast panel discussion March 2, jointly sponsored by FierceMobileHealthcare, FierceWireless and Meru Networks.
Our panel of hospital CIOs and wireless experts shared their 'been there, done that' lessons learned, and discussed the many misconceptions regarding mobile technology deployment. Although this technology has yet to reach its full potential in the healthcare setting--"we'll see tremendous explosion" predicts said Geoffrey Brown, Senior VP and CIO at Inova Health System in Falls Church, Va.--our panelists agreed that many hospitals have learned the hard way how not to deploy this technology.
by Thomas Dahlborg
A physician friend of mine from a well-known, local health care system recently confided in me that he's so tired and burned-out that he's thinking of leaving the practice of medicine.
As a primary care physician, he feels his role has moved further away from that of a healer and more into that of a "production worker."
by Joseph Ingemi
I must admit I am disappointed in the Meaningful Use Regulations (45 CFR Part 170) because of the high cost of compliance. The regulators themselves admit to the favoritism showed to larger software developers. So I went to Regulations.gov and submitted the following feedback.
The irony is that we hear a lot from Washington, DC about growing small businesses. Yet here we have developed a regulation that strikes a blow to those very small businesses that need help.
Readers know of my passionate interest in international health, and I was very excited to read recently of a collaborative that has been underway for a few years ... especially when I realized that I know some colleagues whom I know are involved in it.
by Thomas Dahlborg
Having once worked for a Medicaid HMO, I witnessed first-hand the impact that charity "free care" (in which individuals receive without having the opportunity to give back) had on an individual's self-esteem, not to mention their health. This Medicaid program did well at supporting individuals through health crises, but lacked any real focus on improving the overall health status of an individual and a community. The key missing ingredient: Supporting the patient's self-esteem.
Read more!