An email from March 2012, my commentary and insights from an email titled – Why UCLA Health System Will Win. Enjoy! I recently stumbled upon the current issue of UCLA MEDICINE, which had an interview with DAVID T. FEINBERG, M.D., M.B.A., CEO of UCLA Hospital System, Associate vice chancellor for UCLA Health Sciences and now, president of UCLA Health System who spoke on what it will take to be successful. He is most proud that the his organization is really “obsessed with being patient centered, in making sure that whoever comes through our doors is treated like they are someone in our own family. That’s our standard…” 99th percentile in patient satisfaction is not enough Also though being in the 99th percentile in the patient satisfaction for the inpatient setting, Dr. Feinberg notes that it means that “eighty-five out of 100 patients would refer to us, but 15 would not. […] Read More »
Tag Archive for physician leadership
Will Technology and a New Cohort of Gen X Doctors Save Health Care?
Posted on December 2, 2013
I recently stumbled across a blog post by Dr. Jay Parkinson, an entrepreneur and founder of Sherpaa, who reflected on a recent private breakfast with New Yorker and best selling author Dr. Atul Gawande. The question posed by Gawande: Can technology be a change agent for health care? From Parkinson’s blog post, the response is: The inevitable answer is yes, with one important caveat. It’s not the technology that will change the practice of medicine, it’s the doctors who use the technology who will end up changing it. And it won’t come overnight. Many of the most influential doctors practicing medicine today have an antagonistic relationship with computers. Change will only come in a massive way when the under-40 generation takes control. Under-40s expect technology as impressive as Facebook, twitter, kayak, and tumblr to influence each and every moment of our practice. My generation simply doesn’t know how to live […] Read More »
Is Making Primary Care More Professionally Satisfying As Simple As Lowering Panel Size?
Posted on November 3, 2013
As a practicing primary care doctor, I very much enjoy my career choice. I’m fortunate enough to be in a large multispecialty practice that is collegial and forward thinking. If I was in a smaller practice like other colleagues, I would not quite feel the same. Yet concern about how to make primary care attractive for both future doctors and those currently in practice has been something I’ve been occupied with since 2010. It is simply about lowering panel size? Though that may help, the answer is more complex than that. In this post and a future post, I ask that question and propose a framework on how primary care can be better and how physician leaders might best address the problem. In 2006, my medical group transitioned to an electronic medical record (EMR). Interestingly, nothing changed on the amount of time doctors spent in the office. After becoming more […] Read More »
Why Health Care Reform Won’t Happen Without Physician Leadership
Posted on August 1, 2013
This past week has been filled with great articles that show the stunning gap between what we know and what we need to do in health care to make it more affordable, accessible, and higher quality. In a recent piece by NPR, research shows that when it comes to treatment of low back pain, doctors are prescribing more powerful pain medications (narcotics) and ordering more imaging tests like MRI and CT scans when there is no evidence these are better than anti-inflammatories, time, and rest. Reasons for gap? Solutions to make the care provided for low back pain more evidence and scientifically based, we first needed guidelines. In the past, we didn’t have guidelines. Now we have had guidelines for quite sometime. However, we also know it takes 17 years for an idea to spread to be commonly practiced and become the norm. So to help make change happen more […] Read More »
Is HealthTap Good for Doctors?
Posted on July 16, 2013
Is HealthTap good for doctors? I had a chance to hear Ron Gutnam, CEO and founder of HealthTap, at the 2013 Stanford Innovation Health Summit. He describes it best (comments begin at 3:00). “Patients or people can get health answers from physicians in minutes for free using their mobile devices, using their web browser from any time and any where. We started with pediatricians and obstetricians serving pregnant women and moms. Less than two years we have expanded our physician network to over 37,000 US licensed physicians in good standing, 128 specialties in all 50 states. We have physicians in over 3100 cities across the country. You can go to HealthTap, ask any question you want and get an answer for free in minutes or a few hours. There is a shift in how people want to get their health information today, from whom, and how fast they expect to […] Read More »
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