Imagine you’re a CEO in charge of a health care organization with thousands of physicians and 19 hospitals. Overall, the quality of care delivered is good. Prices and costs are low. But there is a problem: Patients rate your service below average. Maki…
Diagnostic errors (missed, delayed, incorrect diagnoses) are increasingly being recognized as a prevalent cause of harm to patients. At the same time, physicians are simultaneously under pressure to deliver high-quality, low-cost health care. How do ph…
Like many accountable care organizations, Austin Regional Clinic (ARC) in Texas is building a record of success on the Medicare Shared Savings Program’s (MSSP) so-called “Track One.” Now looming, however, is an automatic transfer of ARC to the MSSP’s r…
At midnight on February 15th, if Republicans and Democrats don’t come to an agreement about border security funding, the American people will be facing the possibility of a third government shutdown since President Trump took office. The most recent go…
Florence Nightingale was among the first nurses who started wearing a nurse’s cap. The cap was derived by nuns and represented those caring for the sick. Hair was neatly tightened into a bun and covered by the cap. Back then becoming a nurse was typica…
In a New York Post article dated January 23, 2019, the author states how Americans without health care insurance hit 13.7 percent. This 2.8 percent increase means an additional seven-million Americans lack health coverage as noted by the Gallup survey …
Instead of driving on the highway, let’s imagine you drove upwards from wherever you are. You’ll reach space in about an hour. On your way up, you’ll begin to see everything differently. Cities, roads, and trees slowly blur out to make way for a new ki…
As I walk into the well-upholstered elevator lobby of the hospital and make my way toward the stairs for another night of covering the ICU, I am again inundated with plaques, advertisements and a six-foot-tall cardboard cutout depicting an executive in…
Years ago, I was contacted by a health plan about an elderly nursing home patient who had not been screened for osteoporosis. While brittle bones are a big problem in skilled nursing settings, the real problem for this health plan was its low HEDIS sco…
Just like you, I’m trying to make sense of the world around me. But there are no templates for the bridge that health care’s building for its future. All we can do is listen to weak signals and amplify them. Recently (and finally), CVS boug…
