Improve patient safety to improve healthcare quality

Health Policy
January 29, 2012

It has taken 13 years for us to revisit the issues in To Err Is Human, the 1999 landmark government report that shocked our nation with its revelation that 98,000 people died yearly in hospitals due to doctors’ errors. For decades, and through one administration after another, the lack of safety in our healthcare system has gone un-addressed, placing us at greater and greater risk. Hospitals have disappeared, …

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Improve patient safety to improve healthcare quality

Interviewing a primary care doctor to better understand her professional day

Physician
May 1, 2011

As a young primary care doctor in Kiev, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union), Dr. Elena Rogova learned her craft well, working in a hospital that catered to scientists, celebrities, artists, musicians and senior government officials.

As a top medical student, this hospital had sought her services, and she enjoyed her work there. Dr. Rogova had no intention of leaving …

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Interviewing a primary care doctor to better understand her professional day

Health reform needs to end fee for service medicine

Health Policy
March 3, 2010

As the health reform debate rages on, the central issue of how to improve care while reducing costs remains unaddressed.

Fee-for-service has reduced doctors to assembly line pieceworkers, paid by the office visit and procedure rather than by effectiveness of treatment. The result is an inefficient, costly and dangerous system. It is not unusual for a five minute office visit, which excludes clinical examination or note taking. Many patients/consumers can be …

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Health reform needs to end fee for service medicine