Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

A huddle has the potential to change the way we care for patients

Fred N. Pelzman, MD
Physician
August 31, 2013
Share
Tweet
Share

Having gotten all of the members of our team on board, how do we get them to actually get together?

We’ve all got busy days, all have lots of jobs to do, pulled in multiple different directions. The time needed to be thoughtful and really invest in the patient’s care is missing from our day. We need to make room for it, to get together, to really apply ourselves to the mission at hand — this incredible thing, this unique opportunity called today’s patient appointment?

But for any given patient, different members of the staff may have different goals in mind for the day, tasks that need to be accomplished for the patient. And the patients themselves have their own agenda that they are going to present to us. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could align some or all of these?

Enter pre-visit planning.

Planning ahead for each appointment before the patient walks in the door would allow us to get a handle on at least some of what the patient needs that day: missing healthcare maintenance, vaccinations, condition-specific testing. Information could be collected from the medical chart from prior visits, and data from specialists that the patient has seen in the interim could be gathered and reviewed as well.

Point-of-care testing could be pre-ordered, annual mammograms scheduled, expected blood tests set up in the lab, and other resources anticipated for the day such as nutrition visits, social worker appointments, care coordination, and patient education sessions could be penciled into the schedule, all in preparation for the patient’s arrival.

Getting all the members of the team together to focus on the patient, before they arrive, can also help us see the patients as real people, less like a body passing through the office, stopping at multiple stations along the way, working to get them out the door. The members of the team can share insights, bring things to each other’s attention that any one of us might have missed — the forest for the trees.

So how do we make this work? There have been multiple attempts to put huddles in place in practices, and we have all seen these come, linger, wither, and fail. Often the model focuses on work flow, inspirational messages from administration, and ongoing efforts to “stick to a script” so we can increase patient satisfaction scores.

I have no real interest in showing up at yet another meeting where we all say we should work together as a team to better care for our patients, as if remembering to always serve them with a smile will get us the highest scores on those after-visit surveys. We are not a fast-food restaurant, and just a smile will no longer cut it.

But I do believe we need to build a daily huddle that actually works to improve the care of our patients — one that focuses on efficiencies of scale, utilizing the data from our patient registries, information retrieval systems, and dashboards, and the dedicated work of the care coordinators and other members of the team doing preparatory work.

In this way, the time invested in the huddle will make the day work better, leaving more time for every member of the team to get done what really matters for the patients. Once again, practicing up to our licenses.

Think of it like this: at the beginning of a day — a practice session, if you will — everyone comes to the huddle. The front desk staff, registrars, medical assistants, nurse practitioners, residents, attendings, nurses, physician assistants, care coordinators, social workers: all the members of the team.

No one runs the huddle, and everyone runs the huddle. It is the place where we can go through the entire schedule of the day, talking about lessons learned from yesterday, and setting up for the day ahead. Information will be retrieved live from our patient registries for management of chronic disease conditions, healthcare maintenance, and acute-care protocols, based on patients’ known medical conditions and the reasons for their appointment that day.

Everyone gets to put their two cents in, filling in the gaps (we all know they are there) from each of our separate task lists, coming together to fill these holes, to provide a more cohesive and comprehensive healthcare visit, and hopefully to provide that quality of care we and our patients are looking for.

ADVERTISEMENT

Isn’t this better than the system we have now, where all of us are always playing catch-up?

An effective and efficient huddle that gets something done has the potential to truly change the way we care for patients and can undoubtedly make the experience a better one for all involved.

And maybe it will even boost our patient satisfaction scores.

Fred N. Pelzman is associate professor of medicine, New York Presbyterian Hospital and associate director, Weill Cornell Internal Medicine Associates, New York City, NY. He blogs at Building the Patient-Centered Medical Home. 

Prev

Dissection is as much exploration as it is self-evaluation

August 31, 2013 Kevin 6
…
Next

Women physicians in academia: The academic versus the biological clock

August 31, 2013 Kevin 6
…

Tagged as: Primary Care

Post navigation

< Previous Post
Dissection is as much exploration as it is self-evaluation
Next Post >
Women physicians in academia: The academic versus the biological clock

ADVERTISEMENT

More by Fred N. Pelzman, MD

  • Why electronic medical records should be standardized

    Fred N. Pelzman, MD
  • Can answers to after hours calls be automated?

    Fred N. Pelzman, MD
  • We have to do better than DNR tattoos

    Fred N. Pelzman, MD

More in Physician

  • How policy and stigma block addiction treatment

    Mariana Ndrio, MD
  • Why don’t women in medicine support each other?

    Jessie Mahoney, MD
  • IMGs are the future of U.S. primary care

    Adam Brandon Bondoc, MD
  • The high cost of gender inequity in medicine

    Kolleen Dougherty, MD
  • Women physicians: How can they survive and thrive in academic medicine?

    Elina Maymind, MD
  • How transplant recipients can pay it forward through organ donation

    Deepak Gupta, MD
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • Why your clinic waiting room may affect patient outcomes

      Ziya Altug, PT, DPT and Shirish Sachdeva, PT, DPT | Conditions
    • The human case for preserving the nipple after mastectomy

      Thomas Amburn, MD | Conditions
    • Nuclear verdicts and rising costs: How inflation is reshaping medical malpractice claims

      Robert E. White, Jr. & The Doctors Company | Policy
    • How new loan caps could destroy diversity in medical education

      Caleb Andrus-Gazyeva | Policy
    • The ethical crossroads of medicine and legislation

      M. Bennet Broner, PhD | Conditions
    • How community and buses saved my retirement

      Raymond Abbott | Conditions
  • Past 6 Months

    • Health equity in Inland Southern California requires urgent action

      Vishruth Nagam | Policy
    • Why transgender health care needs urgent reform and inclusive practices

      Angela Rodriguez, MD | Conditions
    • How restrictive opioid policies worsen the crisis

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
    • Why primary care needs better dermatology training

      Alex Siauw | Conditions
    • New student loan caps could shut low-income students out of medicine

      Tom Phan, MD | Physician
    • Why pain doctors face unfair scrutiny and harsh penalties in California

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • Coconut oil’s role in Alzheimer’s and depression

      Marc Arginteanu, MD | Conditions
    • How policy and stigma block addiction treatment

      Mariana Ndrio, MD | Physician
    • Unused IV catheters cost U.S. hospitals billions

      Piyush Pillarisetti | Policy
    • Why U.S. universities should adopt a standard pre-med major [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Ancient health secrets for modern life

      Larry Kaskel, MD | Conditions
    • How the internet broke the doctor-parent trust

      Wendy L. Hunter, MD | Conditions

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

View 7 Comments >

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • Why your clinic waiting room may affect patient outcomes

      Ziya Altug, PT, DPT and Shirish Sachdeva, PT, DPT | Conditions
    • The human case for preserving the nipple after mastectomy

      Thomas Amburn, MD | Conditions
    • Nuclear verdicts and rising costs: How inflation is reshaping medical malpractice claims

      Robert E. White, Jr. & The Doctors Company | Policy
    • How new loan caps could destroy diversity in medical education

      Caleb Andrus-Gazyeva | Policy
    • The ethical crossroads of medicine and legislation

      M. Bennet Broner, PhD | Conditions
    • How community and buses saved my retirement

      Raymond Abbott | Conditions
  • Past 6 Months

    • Health equity in Inland Southern California requires urgent action

      Vishruth Nagam | Policy
    • Why transgender health care needs urgent reform and inclusive practices

      Angela Rodriguez, MD | Conditions
    • How restrictive opioid policies worsen the crisis

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
    • Why primary care needs better dermatology training

      Alex Siauw | Conditions
    • New student loan caps could shut low-income students out of medicine

      Tom Phan, MD | Physician
    • Why pain doctors face unfair scrutiny and harsh penalties in California

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • Coconut oil’s role in Alzheimer’s and depression

      Marc Arginteanu, MD | Conditions
    • How policy and stigma block addiction treatment

      Mariana Ndrio, MD | Physician
    • Unused IV catheters cost U.S. hospitals billions

      Piyush Pillarisetti | Policy
    • Why U.S. universities should adopt a standard pre-med major [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Ancient health secrets for modern life

      Larry Kaskel, MD | Conditions
    • How the internet broke the doctor-parent trust

      Wendy L. Hunter, MD | Conditions

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

A huddle has the potential to change the way we care for patients
7 comments

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...