Tag: communication
The "Quality Minute" – A New, Brief, and Structured Technique for Quality Improvement Education During the Morbidity and Mortality Conference
The Quality Minute is a brief, structured presentation designed to incorporate quality improvement (QI) education into the surgical morbidity and mortality (M&M) conference. The 6-slide, 5-minute structure makes it easy... read more
Data on 211 Million Referrals Shows How Doctors Really Work Together
A peek into the hidden world of medicine reveals some surprising trends. Sometimes it involves the traditional sense of the word - a primary care physician referring a patient to a specialist (like a cardiologist or gastroenterologist)... read more
Boarding ICU patients: Are our rounding practices subpar?
Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) patients "boarding" in ICUs other than the designated home unit have been shown to suffer increased rates of complications. We hypothesized that ICU rounding practices are different... read more
Nurses make me a better doctor
I firmly believe that the relationship between a nurse and physician should be one of collaboration without hierarchy. It takes a very special person to become a nurse. Without them, physicians cannot function. I thank all... read more
We're Bad at Death. Can We Talk?
Despite growing recognition that more care isn't necessarily better care, particularly at the end of life, many Americans still receive an enormous dose of medicine in their final days. On average, patients make 29 visits... read more
New Telestroke Guidelines by American Telemedicine Association
These new telestroke guidelines were developed to assist practitioners in providing assessment, diagnosis, management, and/or remote consultative support to patients exhibiting symptoms and signs consistent with an acute... read more
What Is Permitted in Text Messaging About Protected Health Information?
This Viewpoint discusses the best use of texting clinical information, noting that neither Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act nor the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act offer... read more
Emory Healthcare leverages Philips eICU platform to save $4.6 million
Emory Healthcare used Philips' technology for an eICU program, resulting in massive savings, lowered readmission rates and more. Emory's story began in 2010 and 2011, when team members saw tele-ICUs based on platforms... read more
Many Factors Contribute to Nurses' Alarm Response Time
Multiple factors including nurses' experience and assignments determined how fast they responded when monitoring alarms were triggered in a children's hospital, a video analysis found. Nurses were more likely to... read more
Changing Mindsets to Enhance Treatment Effectiveness
This Viewpoint defines mindsets - frames of mind that orient beliefs or expectations - discusses how they can influence patients' perceptions about treatment and self-efficacy, and proposes ways physicians might shape... read more
Top 5 Skills Every Nurse Should Develop Quickly
What are the top five skills that every nurse should develop? Nope! Not those. I imagine many of you reading automatically think about the clinical skills it takes to become a professional nurse. While clinical skills are... read more
Communicating Context in Quality Improvement Reports
The study by Demb and colleagues reports on the positive results of an intervention strategy to reduce excess radiation exposure across 5 academic medical centers associated with the University of California. Leading up to... read more
Pricey Technology Is Keeping People Alive Who Don’t Want to Live
As an ICU physician, I’ve used technologies like breathing machines and feeding tubes to save lives that would have been lost just a few decades earlier. But I’ve also seen the substantial costs, both human and financial,... read more
Family Responses to Prognostic Information in Chronic Critical Illness
Prognostic disclosure by skilled clinician communicators evokes a repertoire of responses from surrogates for the chronically critically ill. Recognition of these response patterns may help all clinicians better communicate... read more
Defining the Role of Specialists in Value-Based Health Care
Health care is at a crossroads and under pressure to add value by improving patient experience and health outcomes and reducing costs to the system. Efforts to improve the care model in primary care, such as the patient-centered... read more
Learning to talk about death should start early in doctors' careers
At first glance, physicians’ poor understanding of death and the process of dying is baffling, since they are supposed to be custodians of health across the lifespan. Look deeper, though, and it may reflect less the attitudes... read more
Visual Abstracts, A New Strategy for Creating Journal Articles
You might be interested in this initiative arising out of surgery, and primarily developed by Andrew M. Ibrahim MD, MSc of the University of Michigan. Dr. Ibrahim is a Clinical Lecturer in Surgery here and a Robert Wood Johnson... read more
5 ways to improve care at the End of Life
These days it is much more common for people to live longer with multiple chronic conditions, and we have the technology to prolong life as death approaches. End-of-life care is fragmented, intensive, and costly - and patients’... read more
Guidelines for Family-Centered Care in the Neonatal, Pediatric, and Adult ICU
The primary goal of these guidelines is to identify best practices for family-centered care in the ICU based on existing evidence. These guidelines were developed using a rigorous, objective, and transparent assessment of... read more
Creating a Culture of Caring
How do you build and maintain a culture of shared purpose in the infinitely complex arena of health care? How do you ensure that you engender in employees a dedication and commitment to doing what's right? Identifying the... read more
Patients want to be heard loud and clear!
We congratulate ten Hoorn et al. on their systematic review of communication with ICU patients. Their work in defining an algorithm to assist improving communication options for these patients addresses a clear gap in patient-centred... read more
Five strategies can reduce risk of medical lawsuits
Five strategies can be employed by physicians in order to help reduce the risk of lawsuits, according to an article published in Medical Economics.... read more
