“Variation and Imprecision of Clerkship Grading in US Medical Schools” is the understated title of the paper in the August 2012 issue of the journal Academic Medicine. The authors, from the department of medicine at Brigham and...
Read MoreA report from the National Center for Health Statistics indicates that 55% of physicians had adopted an electronic health record (EHR) system in 2011. The report, available at www.cdc.gov/nchs, reviews the types of systems that...
Read MoreTwo recent papers have prompted me to ask myself the question, “Why do malpractice suits take so long to be resolved?” One was by a group from Harvard, USC and the RAND Corporation. They looked at more than 10,000 closed...
Read MorePatients are well ahead of providers in demanding online access to health information (IT) and communication tools, according to a new survey. Consumers are eager to use both the internet and mobile devices to connect with their...
Read MoreThe wannabe congressman appeared with his neat hair and pressed suit, a competent yet compassionate expression on his face. “The first thing I am going to do when I get to Congress is to work to repeal Obamacare,” he said,...
Read MoreAs new Medicare rules kick in, some 2,200 hospitals nationwide are facing financial penalties for 30-day readmission rates for myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure and pneumonia. Medicare payments will be lowered by...
Read More
The idea of advanced practice nurses directing primary care practices on their own without a...
Read MoreOK, I am an EMR geek who isn’t so thrilled with the direction of EMR. So what, I have been asked, would make EMR something that is really meaningful? What would be the things that would truly help, and not just make more hoops...
Read MoreThe September 2012 issue of the AARP Bulletin has a story about a woman who sued an elder-law attorney for legal malpractice. Bear with me. It’s an interesting tale. In 2004, a man consulted an elder-law attorney to set up a...
Read More
About 30% of health spending in 2009 — roughly $750 billion – was wasted on unnecessary...
Read MoreThe Physicians Foundation has released a report that explores attitudes and opinions about the future of the healthcare system among American physicians aged 40 and younger. Available at www.physiciansfoundation.org, the report...
Read MoreIf you pay attention at all to news about medicine, you must have heard about the tragic death of a 12-year-old boy who was seen and discharged from the emergency department of the prestigious New York University Medical Center....
Read MoreSalaries among mid-career academic physicians appear to vary between men and women, according to an American study. The average salary for men was $200,433, compared with $167,669 for women. Gender differences persisted after...
Read More
More than 250,000 hip fractures occur annually in the United States, and the incidence is...
Read More
Doctors and nurses in the ICU at Long Island’s North Shore University Hospital are being watched...
Read More
As healthcare costs rise, patients are demanding a higher level of service. This expectation goes...
Read More“Sometimes, the hardest thing for a physician to do is nothing,” observed my colleague Jay Siwek, MD, in a recent editorial in American Family Physician. “And although patients are sometimes a source of excess...
Read MoreAccording to AHRQ reports, healthcare quality in the United States appears to be improving faster than access to care and disparities in care. The reports, available at www.ahrq.gov, reviewed nearly 250 healthcare quality...
Read MoreYou are probably familiar with the CMS “never events” initiative. CMS has decided it will not reimburse hospitals for treatment related to complications that it says should never occur. Here is the current list. Foreign object...
Read More
Most cardiology training programs in the United States do not appear to adhere to basic preventive...
Read More
