Archive for the ‘Quality Care’ Category

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5 Ways You Can Avoid Being Misdiagnosed

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

By Evan Falchuk

Billionaire Teddy Forstmann has apparently been diagnosed with a serious form of brain cancer.  There’s a tragic twist to the story: according to Fox Business News, Forstmann believes that for more than a year, he had been misdiagnosed with meningitis.

ABC News wonders:

How could such a misfortune befall a billionaire —- a man able to afford the best doctors, best technology and the most sophisticated diagnostic tests?

They’re missing the point.  Misdiagnosis happens with shocking regularity – as much as 44% of the time, depending on the illness.

I’m sure that, as with most things, being a billionaire is better.  But as a neurosurgeon quoted by ABC News points out, even for a billionaire, getting the right care is “still a bit of a crap shoot.”

So how can you improve your odds?  Here are 5 tips that work.

(more…)

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Posted in Doctor Patient Relationship, Patient Misdiagnoses, Quality Care | No Comments »

The “CSI Effect” Hits Medicine

Sunday, August 28th, 2011

By Evan Falchuk

I’m in Israel, home to some of the most innovative care in the world.  Doctors here wanted to know if the high-tech tests that are an increasing part of their work help.  A couple of weeks ago, they published their results.

It turns out that in about 90% of cases, it didn’t matter.

(more…)

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Posted in Decision Support, Doctor Patient Relationship, Global Health Care, Quality Care | No Comments »

A Patient is Not a Shunt

Friday, February 4th, 2011

By Evan Falchuk

Some people may tell you that health care IT will solve many of the quality and cost problems in health care.

I don’t believe them.

(more…)

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Posted in Decision Support, Doctor Patient Relationship, Electronic Medical Records, Quality Care | 9 Comments »

Don’t Miss: Fast Company Webinar with Best Doctors

Monday, January 24th, 2011

By Evan Falchuk

At noon ET today, I’ll be on a live webinar with Kaihan Krippendorff of Fast Company magazine.

Here’s my post explaining what it’s all about – or you can just go here to register.

Remember, it’s free – so don’t miss it!

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Posted in Quality Care, The Future of American Health Care | No Comments »

The Future of American Health Care?

Friday, November 19th, 2010

By Evan Falchuk

There’s a country with an unusual health care system.

In it, you often spend about as much time with your lawyer as you do your doctor.  There are special courts set up to decide what kinds of treatment you are allowed to have.  And doctors have to be careful that they don’t say or do the wrong thing, or else they risk being blackballed by insurance companies.

The country:  the United States of America.

(more…)

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Posted in Healthcare Incentives, Healthcare Reform, Quality Care | 1 Comment »

Stop the Phony Quality Measures, Ctd

Friday, October 15th, 2010

By Evan Falchuk

Who do you think is likely to be a better doctor:

A board certified graduate of one of the top medical schools in America, or a non-certified doctor trained in a foreign country?

If your answer is “I have absolutely no idea,” then you’re probably spending a lot of time looking at the “report cards” that pass for measures of health care quality.  And you’re probably confused.

(more…)

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Posted in Doctor Patient Relationship, Physician Perspectives, Quality Care | 14 Comments »

Health Business Blog Podcast

Friday, August 13th, 2010

By Evan Falchuk

David Williams, the Charlie Rose of the health care blogosphere, recently interviewed me.

You can listen to the audio of our wide-ranging talk on David’s always-interesting Health Business Blog.

We talked about health care reform, health IT, social media, health care quality, patient navigation, and the role of Best Doctors.

Give it a listen, and visit back to David’s blog regularly.

What’s your opinion on the subjects we talked about?

Posted in Decision Support, Doctor Patient Relationship, Electronic Medical Records, Healthcare Reform, In the News, Quality Care | 1 Comment »

“I was shocked”

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

By Evan Falchuk

According to the Annals of Internal Medicine, doctors make the wrong medical decisions surprisingly often.

Using a “mystery patient” technique – in which actors pretended to be patients – researchers found that doctors made errors in complicated cases in 60% to 90% of cases.  Sixty to ninety percent. In uncomplicated cases, they made errors in nearly 30% of cases.

As one study participant put it, “I was shocked.”

(more…)

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Posted in Doctor Patient Relationship, Patient Misdiagnoses, Quality Care | 11 Comments »

Stop the Phony Quality Measures

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

By Evan Falchuk

If a web site touted misleading health care information, you’d hope the government would do something about it.  But what do you do when the government is the one feeding the public bad information?

(more…)

Posted in Healthcare Reform, Patients, Quality Care, Some People Don't Get the Interwebs | 8 Comments »

Does Paying Doctors More Lead to Better Quality?

Monday, March 8th, 2010

By Evan Falchuk

The Jobbing Doctor, a primary care doctor in the UK, writes today about the British version of what Americans call “Pay for Performance,” or “P4P.”

He says something I’ve said many times before (like here, here, and here).  Which is this: incentives fail because they try to treat medicine as an assembly line process, when it’s not.

But what’s most interesting about his post is that it could have been written by a doctor from anyplace on the planet Earth.

(more…)

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Posted in Doctor Patient Relationship, Quality Care | No Comments »

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  • "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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