A recent study in Medical Care about Horizon BCBS of New Jersey's Medical Home pilot reminded me of the expression a "house does not make a home." Or in this case how building a medical house to the spec (as laid out by 3rd parties like NCQA and JACHO) is not the...
"Patients are, in fact, overly patient; they put up with unnecessary discomforts and grant their doctors the benefit of every doubt, until deficiencies in care are too manifest to be overlooked. Generally speaking, one can assume that the quality of care is,...
When it comes to delivering truly patient-centered care…how are providers supposed to know when they have “arrived”? According to Michael Berry, MD, President of the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation, providers will know they have achieved the “pinnacle of...
I hate saying I told you so. But to quote myself…"patient engagement is a physician-patient communications challenge and not an HIT (Health Information Technology) challenge." Just take a look at the Mayo Clinic’s patient portal experience which was discussed at a...
A guest post by Aanand D. Naik, MD - Chief, Education and Training Core in Health Services Research at Department of Veterans Affairs, Michael E. DeBakey VAMC and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Houston, Texas. Reposted from the Blog...
We have all seen them. You know…those charts showing us how satisfied patients are with the way their doctors communicate. Did your doctor listen to you? Did you doctor explain things in a way you could understand? Funny thing about these charts, whether they be...
As a patient, care giver, researcher and a human being, here 's my "take" on what physicians and hospitals, and all the entities that work with them like health plans, ACOs , etc. need to do to effectively increase patient engagement in 2013 and beyond. Act like you...
Face it. We all have personal health goals. We may not share our personal health goals with family of friends like we do our financial or professional goals, but we all still have them. I for example aspire to the following personal health goals: To defy the...
In a word...no. It has been said that a physician’s patient communication skills are just as important as their clinical knowledge. After all, it is only by “talking to and listening patients” that physicians are able to accurately diagnose and treat their...