Archive for the ‘Doctors beating the odds’ Category

How a Harvard Hospital Improves Patient Safety

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
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By Evan Falchuk

Patient safety is another way to look at health care quality.

Some hospitals are doing meaningful things to improve both patient safety and the quality of care.   Over at the Better Health blog, Dr. Val Jones has put together a terrific three-part video series with Paul Levy, President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

The Harvard-affiliated BI Deaconess is one of the leading hospitals in the country.  And Paul Levy is one of the leading-edge innovators in the use of social media through his blog and active twitter use.  Dr. Val has managed to capture that unique combination in the work done by the BI Deaconess in her videos.

There are three videos.  One is about how BI keeps patients aware of their safety record, and another talks about how patients can keep in touch with friends and family while they are in the hospital.

The one I liked the best is about how patients can have a better hospital experience by keeping themselves informed.  You can watch that below.

The work hospitals are doing to improve question of patient safety is something we should hear more about.  Kudos to Val for helping people see this in action.

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Posted in Doctors beating the odds, Quality Care | View Comments

How Miracles Happen

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
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By Evan Falchuk

My mother sent me this incredible medical story from the New York Times.  It’s about a young woman, Jessa Perrin, who suddenly faced a life-threatening diagnosis, and the heroic work her doctors and nurses did to save her.

The story spans the globe- from the remarkable medical team at the Hadassah hospital in Israel to the transplant team at New York Presbyterian Hospital.  But perhaps the most moving people in the story are unnamed – the family of a little girl who, on her death, donated her liver to save Jessa.

Most people with transplants have time to prepare, but she had woken up one day in an intensive care unit, thinking she was still in Israel, only to be told that she was in New York — with a new liver. Jessa said only, “It’s crazy.”

In this time of heated debate around health care reform, it is easy to lose sight of the heroic work doctors do every day to save people’s lives.  It doesn’t matter what kind of health care system they work under, they focus every day on making things possible that seem like miracles.

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Posted in Doctor Patient Relationship, Doctors beating the odds, Healthcare, Patients, Physician Perspectives, Quality Care | View Comments

Doctors: Your Patients Are Talking About You

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
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By Evan Falchuk

Attention doctors:

Your patients are talking about you.

They tell their friends, family and co-workers about you.  They talk about you in public places where people they don’t know might overhear them.  Probably every doctor understands this.  But for some reason, once all this talking starts happening on the internet, some doctors do odd things.  Like trying to get patients to sign “gag orders” before agreeing to treat them.

It’s a mistake, and a missed opportunity.

(more…)

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Posted in Doctor Patient Relationship, Doctors beating the odds, Healthcare Reform, Quality Care, Some People Don't Get the Interwebs | View Comments

We Have No Consensus on Health Care Reform

Thursday, July 16th, 2009
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By Evan Falchuk

I belong to a terrific organization that brings together C-level executives, once a month, to discuss issues each of us face.  It’s called Vistage.  One of the subjects we talked about yesterday was health care.  It was like a focus group made up of seasoned, senior executives from many different industries.

The discussion revealed the tremendous divide between what ordinary Americans think about health care and what policy makers in Washington are doing.  It’s a combination that is almost certain to ensure that whatever reform passes may make our problems worse, rather than better.

(more…)

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Posted in Doctors beating the odds, Healthcare Reform, Quality Care | View Comments

The Changing Face of Canadian Health Care

Saturday, July 11th, 2009
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By Evan Falchuk

Many Americans look to Canada, as an example of a government-run health care system that works.

But is that really what it is?

(more…)

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Posted in Canadian Health Care, Doctor Patient Relationship, Doctors beating the odds, Healthcare, Healthcare Reform, Physician Perspectives | View Comments

Get Pathology Out of the Basement

Thursday, May 21st, 2009
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By Evan Falchuk

The first thing you see when you enter the Toronto General Hospital’s Pathology Department is a prominent sign bearing a quote from Sir William Osler.  “As is your pathology, so goes your clinical practice,” it says.  It’s the first clue that there is something special happening here.

Dr. Silvia Asa is the Chief of the department and has built a remarkable facility in downtown Toronto.  With a team of nearly 40 full-time pathologists in a multi-specialty setting, and dozens of residents and fellows, her department reviews thousands of samples a week.  Walking the halls where the doctors do their work, you might think you were in a law firm, except for the massive microscopes adorning each desk.  The technology and organization were just about the opposite of what I saw in Argentina.

But it wasn’t the technology that was most impressive.  It was the deep passion the doctors clearly feel about the art of pathology, and the prominence it must have in any realistic conversation about quality in health care.  “Pathology has always been in the basement,” Dr. Asa told me, and she means it more than just literally.  Most hospitals have their pathology departments in basements, where the space needed for big lab equipment is at less of a premium.  But it also reflects the importance some place on pathology, almost treating it as an afterthought.

(more…)

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Posted in Doctors beating the odds, Healthcare | View Comments

How Blogging Doctors Will Change Health Care

Monday, April 27th, 2009
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By Evan Falchuk

Doctors and patients complain all the time about how badly our health care system works.  It shouldn’t be a surprise — neither doctors or patients designed it.  But the internet, and especially blogs, have changed things.  Once the little guy couldn’t possibly have a meaningful seat at the table in making policy, today bloggers are among the most influential political forces in America.

Doctors are the emerging political force on the web.  Their blogs tell the stories of what it’s really like to practice medicine, and often give the most insightful prescriptions on how to make things better.

But the best doctor-bloggers aren’t political.  They simply describe the world as it really is, from inside their offices, to the hallways of their hospitals, to their real-life experiences with patients.  Like the best doctors, they aren’t afraid to just call it like it is, and do it with a sense of humor.

Doctors have a chance to transform health care in a way no other group can — and doctor-bloggers are in the vanguard.

Posted in Doctor Patient Relationship, Doctors beating the odds, Electronic Medical Records, Healthcare Benefits, Healthcare Reform, Quality Care | View Comments

  • "Medicine is learned by the bedside and not in the class room. Let not your conception of manifestations of disease come from work heard in the lecture room or read from the book: see and then research, compare and control. But see first."
    - Sir William Osler, MD
    The Father of Modern Medicine

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