Value remains one of the most widely invoked and variably interpreted concept in American health care delivery. Beyond patients, stakeholder groups across the health care ecosystem are undertaking value-based initiatives, including payers (e.g., value-based insurance design and payments), provider organizations (e.g., value-based care redesign), pharmaceutical companies and pharmacy benefits managers (e.g., value-based pricing and formularies), […]
Category: KevinMD
Why academic medicine needs to value physician contributions to online platforms
In academic medicine, promotion depends on the weight of our curricula vitae, measured primarily by the number of papers we publish in peer-reviewed journals. Physicians strive to jump through the hoops of publishing their work in “top” journals ranked by the “impact factor” (yearly average number of citations for a given journal). Yet the “impact […]
Not so fast with joint MRIs
You wake up one morning, and your shoulder hurts. You’re not sure why, and blame it on your sleeping position. Perhaps you bend down to pick something up, and when you stand up your knee hurts. These are very common stories heard from patients in an orthopedic surgeon’s office. The onset of joint pain without […]
The “untouchables” of mental health care
When I was first reading up on JM (identifying information changed), I thought the case would go smoothly, well, as smoothly as any inpatient psychiatry case can go. All I had known about her is that she was an elderly woman who was recently released from jail. When the staff came to escort JM to […]
EHRs are killing medical innovation
To paraphrase Bill Gates: “The purpose of humanity is not just to sit behind a counter and do things. More free time is not a terrible thing.” I have innovated. I developed a mutation assay. I discovered that vacuum ultraviolet light from excimer lasers is safe to use on human tissue. I invented an imaging […]
Why physicians should embrace fitness trackers
I mused while staring blankly towards the electronic tracking board, where I foresee reading the triage call “My tracker said, I have AFib.” I delved into what is in my armamentarium to handle this crisis of the digital age. The stethoscope around my neck suddenly seemed archaic. We the physicians have resigned to the redundant […]
A test taker’s worst nightmare became reality
Doctors know high-pressure exams. The day before one is the worst. There is cramming followed by anxiety and insomnia. When sleep finally beats anxiety, the dreaded nightmare falls upon anxious test takers. Every doctor knows. Walking into the testing center, opening the exam, realizing you studied for the wrong exam. The questions might as well […]
Why do doctors treat their own so cruelly?
Medicine has created a culture where public embarrassment, bullying, and passive-aggression have become pedagogy. How can we seek to care for others, when we treat our own so cruelly? I recently met Angie (name changed), a young university student who had entered the clinical years of medical school. Like many, she was introduced to medicine […]