Well it hasn’t been. It’s been an amazing success. But why? To a large degree it’s been from the formation and use of rapid response teams. RRT works like this: ANYONE, from a housekeeper to a physician, from a nurse to an administrator, can call a RRT effort. But embracing “failure” has been key to […]
I’ve got a six year old friend by the name of Wheaton who ended up in the hospital last week. He’s a delightfully precocious kid and wise beyond his years according to his mom. He also has decided he’s going to be a doctor.
As a ‘get well’ token, I send Wheaton a stethoscope. A real […]
In seafaring days before the puzzle of calculating accurate longitudes was solved by the accuracy of John Harrison’s chronograph in the 18th Century, as author Dana Sobel puts it in her book entitled Longitude, “every great captain in the Age of Exploration became lost at sea despite the best available charts and compasses.†In fact, […]
I read with great interest a recent editorial by Dr. Scott Haig, an Assistant Clinical Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons who also is in private practice in the New York City area. The piece appeared in Time online and you can read it here.
I saw a reflection of […]
I’ve enjoyed hearing the healthy debate over Michael Moore’s newest movie, Sicko, and the discussions it has spawned. Fact is, not many of us have experienced healthcare in another country and when we do, it’s the healthcare an American experiences, not necessarily what a citizen of that country experiences. I don’t believe all Cubans experience […]
This is not what I intended to write for today.
This week I’m attending my annual National Speaker’s Association meeting in San Diego and I was working on the article I planned to write on the USAirways flight from Charlotte to California. With ipod music piped through noise reduction headphones I was typing away when Russell […]
There are different “languages of healthcare.†Clinicians speak patient language but often don’t speak the healthcare language of regulation, quality, or finance. It pays to understand and effectively translate from one dialect to another. For instance, “medical necessity†may sound “clinical†but it’s really financial. For CMS, “medical necessity†doesn’t mean something that’s “medically necessary,†[…]
