November 15th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Research
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Researchers found that while the vast majority of smokers want to stop, the vast majority who wanted to got little support from their health care providers. Not that they’d approached their provider, either.
68.8% of current cigarette smokers said they would like to completely stop smoking, and 52.4% had tried to quit smoking in the past year. However, 68.3% of the smokers who tried to quit did so without using evidence-based cessation counseling or medications, and only 48.3% of those who had visited a health-care provider in the past year reported receiving advice to quit smoking.
Little overall change has been observed in these measures in the past decade. However, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
November 15th, 2011 by EvanFalchukJD in Opinion
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Atul Gawande says that we’re used to doctors working like “cowboys” – rugged individualists who are responsible for making sure your care gets done right. We don’t need cowboys, he says. We need “pit crews” – teams of doctors working together toward a common goal, with each playing their own role.
It’s an appealing idea. Pit crew-like teams work, and work well, in trauma units across the country.
But there’s a problem: if you haven’t just been airlifted to a hospital after a horrible accident, you’re not going to be treated by a pit crew. You’re going to be on your own, shuffled from one 15-minute specialist visit to the next, likely with no one person in charge of your care.
Dr. Gawande knows this, and he picks a heck of an example of the problem: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at BestDoctors.com: See First Blog*
October 25th, 2011 by Happy Hospitalist in Health Policy, Opinion
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With all the talk about how EMR/EHR resources will make practicing medicine better, faster and safer, I learned of an unintended consequence that is probably under appreciated these days. Hospitalists are being asked to admit more and more patients because, for primary care doctors, when they compare EMR medicine with the old way of doing things, EMR is just too time consuming to make it worth their effort.
That’s right, hospitalists are admitting more patients because the primary care doctors find their time costs for navigating their new EMR, which they bought to qualify for EHR stimulus funds under ARRA, are simply too great. In a business where efficiency must prevail, EHRs Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*
October 7th, 2011 by BobDoherty in Health Policy, News
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Last week, Medicare’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation announced a Comprehensive Primary Care (CPC) Initiative, which asks private payers and state Medicaid programs to join with Medicare to “help doctors work with patients to ensure they:
1. Manage Care for Patients with High Health Care Needs;
2. Ensure Access to Care;
3. Deliver Preventive Care;
4. Engage Patients and Caregivers; and,
5. Coordinate Care Across the Medical Neighborhood,”
according to an email from CMS’s press office. The initiative will provide qualified practices with risk-adjusted, per patient per month care managements payments, in addition to traditional fee-for-service payments, along with the opportunity to share in savings achieved at the community level.
I believe that the Initiative is a potential game-changer in helping to support and sustain primary care in the United States. But Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
October 5th, 2011 by Lucy Hornstein, M.D. in Opinion
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I get mail, this from a healthy 20-something reader who’s just moved to a new city:
What’s the difference between doctors listed as Family Practice, Internal Medicine, and General Practice? Also, what are some things I should consider (that I might not already be considering) when finding a primary care physician?
That’s a bit of a loaded question, not because of any bias of mine (perish the thought!) but because each of those terms is used in different ways, by different people, at different times, for different purposes. So here’s the rundown on each of them in turn.
Family Practice
What it’s supposed to mean: Designates a physician who has completed a three-year postgraduate training program in Family Medicine, trained to provide primary care to patients of all ages, presenting with conditions of any organ system, including care of acute conditions and ongoing management of chronic diseases.
What doctors hope people think it means: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Dinosaur*
