Hospital/physician relations
Hospital just the latest facility to deal with workers using the Nintendo app phenomenon.
Seventy-four percent of primary care physicians and emergency room doctors do not feel their healthcare facility or practice is taking effective steps to address and prevent burnout, according to a new survey by healthcare-centric market intelligence firm InCrowd.
Prodding here and pinging there, pop-up interruptions can turn into noise to be ignored instead of helpful nudges. Something similar is happening to doctors, nurses and pharmacists. When they're hit with too much information, the result can be a health hazard. The electronic patient records that the federal government has been pushing to coordinate health care and reduce mistakes come with a host of bells and whistles that may be doing the opposite.
Physician leaders have voted to adopt a modernized Code of Medical Ethics during the American Medical Association's annual meeting, capping an eight-year project to modernize the code's ethical guidance for relevance, clarity and consistency, the AMA said.
Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Network will employ IBM Watson's cognitive computing skills to help match cancer patients with clinical trials.
Issues can arise when patient information isn't shared with family and friends, either because medical staff decide to withhold it or patients themselves choose to restrict who can receive information about their care.
Steven Lipstein, chief executive of BJC, which includes Barnes-Jewish hospital in St. Louis, said Medicare doesn't play fair because its formula for setting penalties does not factor in patients with socioeconomic disadvantages -- low-income, poor health habits and chronic illnesses for instance -- that contribute to repeated hospitalizations.
According to a new study, shortages of many drugs that are essential in emergency care have increased in both number and duration in recent years even as shortages for drugs for non-acute or chronic care have eased somewhat.
Between January 2010 and July 2015, the analysis found, inspectors identified 3,016 home health agencies -- nearly a quarter of all those examined by Medicare -- that had inadequately reviewed or tracked medications for new patients. In some cases, nurses failed to realize that patients were taking potentially dangerous combinations of drugs, risking abnormal heart rhythms, bleeding, kidney damage and seizures.
Three hospitals have pledged that they will require their surgeons and 20 affiliated hospitals to meet minimum annual thresholds for 10 high-risk procedures, and have asked other hospital networks around the country to join them.