Mar 6, 2020
We live in an age where the process of communication always seems to have an intermediary involved. We text rather than call; we gossip on social media; we ask Amazon to send us things by talking to "Alexa"; we receive higher education in the form of online courses, we use AI to select potential romantic partners, and now we're eliminating another significant human contact point - the physician. We're moving into the era of telemedicine. While the training for physicians now includes becoming more people conscious and having as much EQ as IQ, we are telling them to be effective...
Read MoreFiled Under: changes in healthcare, coronavirus, corporate wellness, doctor shortages, healthcare quality, medical access, Mental Health, patient satisfaction, preventive healthcare
Dec 3, 2019
In every major metropolitan area within the United States, you will find the names of leading medical malpractice attorneys, on TV and billboards, alerting you to their availability. I sometimes wonder if TV and radio stations would face imminent bankruptcy if the advertising revenue from plaintiffs' attorneys and politicians was restricted on the airwaves? As a licensed attorney for many decades, I can remember when these massive advertising campaigns by lawyers were considered illegal by the respective state bar associations. However, as time has moved forward, we have achieved this excessive commercialization of medical malpractice. In a recent Medscape Survey...
Read MoreFiled Under: changes in healthcare, doctor shortages, healthcare quality, Insider, patient satisfaction
Nov 20, 2019
I once read an article that one of my colleagues left on my desk entitled "2017 Healthcare in Crisis, Needs a Revolution" by Dr. Bill Bysinger, PhD. The opening sentence of this articles states "Having been involved in healthcare since 1980, I continue to be frustrated by the lack of real change or improvement in the industry". In addition, we are confronted every day with news about what our political leaders are contemplating doing in regards to repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). For those of us who spend most of our waking hours involved in the process of...
Read MoreFiled Under: changes in healthcare, doctor shortages, healthcare quality, patient satisfaction
May 29, 2019
Some years ago I spoke at an American Hospital Association meeting to a large group of hospital executives and trustees. The first slide of my presentation was a picture of a 747 jumbo Jet. The question I asked was, “Why would I start my presentation with an aircraft to an audience of hospital leadership?” Then I asked, “How long would we Americans tolerate a 747 jumbo jet crashing every day-and-a-half?” The response was obviously universal - we would not. My next comment was that if you do the calculation, that was the number of hospital deaths caused by nosocomial (hospital...
Read MoreFiled Under: changes in healthcare, chattanooga, doctor shortages, Health Management, healthcare quality, Insider, medical access, patient satisfaction
Nov 29, 2018
There have been two compelling articles in the “New York Times” over the past few weeks focused on healthcare. The first article dated Tuesday, October 30, 2018, is entitled “A Sense of Alarm as Rural Hospitals Keep Closing”1 and the second article dated November 14, 2018, entitled “When Hospitals Merge to Save Money, Patients Often Pay More”2. These two articles are really bookends of the same set of issues emerging in our healthcare delivery system. "Since 2010, nearly 90 rural hospitals have shut their doors. By one estimate, hundreds of other rural hospitals are at risk of doing so." 1 In many communities...
Read MoreFiled Under: changes in healthcare, doctor shortages, Health Management, healthcare quality, Insider, medical access, pros and cons of concierge medicine, Traveling