4 steps to improve quality in your practice
For doctors who want to improve patient care and office efficiency, there is a straight-forward, cost-effective way to achieve that goal. Learn the four steps you need to take.
Plan-Do-Study-Act
A new module in the AMA’s STEPS Forward™ collection of practice improvement strategies can guide you through the steps it will take to make quality-of-care improvements you have identified—anything from improving adult immunization rates to bettering diabetes or hypertension screening and care. It also can help your staff work flow concerns, such as lowering no-show rates and wait times and increasing your chances of fini...
Source: AMA Wire - June 6, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
How Brigham and Women ’s is using claims data to improve outcomes
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As more tools for data collection become available, physicians are adopting them in creative but simple ways to improve outcomes for patients. One physician explains how his hospital is leveraging these tools and other sources of data analysis for patient care. < /p > < p > < strong > Reducing readmissions with the LACE index < /strong > < /p > < p >
Access to large amounts of data could allow physicians to get to specific actionable needs and gaps, said David Bates, MD, officer and chief of internal medicine and primary care at Brigham and Women ’s Hospital in Boston. “We ought to be able to use sources of d...
Source: AMA Wire - June 3, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
How Brigham and Women’s is using claims data to improve outcomes
As more tools for data collection become available, physicians are adopting them in creative but simple ways to improve outcomes for patients. One physician explains how his hospital is leveraging these tools and other sources of data analysis for patient care.
Reducing readmissions with the LACE index
Access to large amounts of data could allow physicians to get to specific actionable needs and gaps, said David Bates, MD, officer and chief of internal medicine and primary care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “We ought to be able to use sources of data to figure out … what’s relevant for individual p...
Source: AMA Wire - June 3, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
The antidote: 3 things to consider when co-prescribing naloxone
Community distribution, use by first responders and co-prescribing of the opioid antagonist naloxone has been shown to reverse prescription opioid and heroin overdose and save lives across the country. But how do you explain the safety benefits of a naloxone prescription to your patients without the stigma that overdose carries? Learn how one physician approaches this issue in a way that helps patients understand that co-prescribing naloxone is for their own safety and well-being.
Naloxone has saved tens of thousands of lives and will save many more as its availability continues to increase throughout the country. Some p...
Source: AMA Wire - June 3, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
The physician ’s ethical role in mental illness
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The diagnosis and treatment of mental illness can raise a lot of ethical questions and concerns that challenge the patient-physician relationship. Focusing on minimizing stigma and communicating in ways that emphasize a patient ’s strengths can help reinforce the patient-physician bond. But as physicians know, not all courses of treatment have the desired result. < a href= " http://pluck.ama-assn.org/ver1.0/../static/images/store/3/9/03f37388-d5ba-45cc-8972-065926571a9c.Full.jpg?1 " target= " _blank " > < img src= " http://pluck.ama-assn.org/ver1.0/../static/images/store/3/9/03f37388-d5ba-45cc-8972-065926571a9c....
Source: AMA Wire - June 2, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
The physician’s ethical role in mental illness
The diagnosis and treatment of mental illness can raise a lot of ethical questions and concerns that challenge the patient-physician relationship. Focusing on minimizing stigma and communicating in ways that emphasize a patient’s strengths can help reinforce the patient-physician bond. But as physicians know, not all courses of treatment have the desired result.
The June issue of the AMA Journal of Ethics® explores some of the critical social, cultural and ethical dimensions of mental illness. Articles featured in this issue include:
“Ethical and clinical dilemmas in using psychotropic medications during pregna...
Source: AMA Wire - June 2, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
New science prepares students for care delivery beyond exam room
A new practice-based science can help prepare medical students to be the best physicians possible, but several barriers stand in the way of successfully incorporating it into students’ educations.
Preparing students for today’s health system
Medical students recognize that learning about health systems science (HSS)—including population health, health systems improvement and high-value care—will help them be better physicians. But students say that preparing to pass their medical licensing board examinations and place in the best residency programs overshadows HSS, a new study shows.
As a founding member of t...
Source: AMA Wire - June 2, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
Making residency more family friendly
With pregnancy and parenthood common during training, two recent studies examined the challenges residents encounter when becoming parents. Find out what the study discovered about childcare, breastfeeding and parental leave policies.
Parenthood is common
Residency programs need more consistent parental leave, breastfeeding mothers need more spaces to express and store breast milk while at work, and parents need better access to onsite childcare, two recent studies looking at parenthood during training concluded.
These are areas of concern because residency coincides with the prime reproductive years and women com...
Source: AMA Wire - June 1, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
Why medicine needs a cloud
In the new era of value-based payment, how physicians use performance measures and data offers the potential to make strides in improving health outcomes. The new payment systems need to be designed around patient care, experts agree. One surgeon recently shared his point of view and explained how his association is using data to improve patient care and creating technology tools that could benefit physicians across the country.
A payment system designed around patient care, not the reverse
When we look at performance measures from a physician standpoint, “they’re traveling down one of two pathways, whether it’s ...
Source: AMA Wire - June 1, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
AMA-IMG Section elects new officers
Congratulations to the new officers for the 2016-2017 AMA International Medical Graduate (IMG) Section Governing Council, who were ratified at the 2016 AMA-IMG Section Annual Meeting earlier this month:
Bhushan Pandya, MD, chair
June-Anne Gold, MD, immediate-past chair
Ved Gossain, MD, chair-elect
Subhash Chandra, MD, delegate
Kevin King, MD, alternate delegate
Guillermo Godoy, MD, member at large
Col. Ronit Katz, MD, member at large
Sameer Avasarala, MD, resident/fellow representative (Source: AMA Wire)
Source: AMA Wire - June 1, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
14th annual AMA Research Symposium: Submit an abstract, be a judge
Mark your calendar to participate in this year’s AMA Research Symposium, taking place Nov. 11 in Orlando in conjunction with the 2016 AMA Interim Meeting.
If you are ECFMG-certified and are awaiting residency, consider submitting an abstract for the symposium. Abstracts will be accepted through Aug. 17 in the following categories for international medical graduate (IMG) participants:
Clinical vignette
Clinical medicine
Improving health outcomes (cardiovascular disease, diabetes)
Learn more about the symposium guidelines and registration.
If you are interested in being a judge for the symposium or have...
Source: AMA Wire - June 1, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
ACS Committee on Diversity Issues seeking new members
Nominations for candidates to fill two vacancies on the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Diversity Issues are due June 30 for assignments that will begin in Oct. 2016.
The committee’s mission is to study the educational and professional needs of underrepresented surgeons and surgical trainees. In addition, committee members will study the impact that the committee’s work may have on the elimination of health care disparities among diverse population groups.
Committee work will include developing proposals and sessions on diversity for the ACS Clinical Congress and advancing tools and resources to ...
Source: AMA Wire - June 1, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
“Bear proof” your retirement: How to protect your finances
Saving for retirement? At some point—or points—stocks and bonds will have down turns as you withdraw funds during your golden years. Learn how you can “bear proof” your investments so those dips don’t zap your savings.
Evaluating your portfolio
Physicians tell their patients that they need to take preventive measures to stave off diabetes, heart attacks and other avoidable medical conditions. Similarly, physicians should be taking preventive measures to financially plan for the best possible retirement.
Most likely you are investing in 401(k)s and other market-driven investments, but what are you doing...
Source: AMA Wire - June 1, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
Court decides on medical liability protections
The Supreme Court of California recently considered a case that could reduce important medical liability protections for physicians under the seminal Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA).
What was at stake
Under deliberation in Winn v. Pioneer Medical Group was whether a claim based on medical negligence committed against an elderly patient could give rise to action under the California Elder Abuse Act. Such an approach would avoid protections allowed in medical negligence cases under MICRA, California’s historic tort reform law, which keeps liability insurance premiums low and places a $250,000 cap on no...
Source: AMA Wire - May 31, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
Entire state gets one naloxone prescription
There are many steps that need to be taken to end an epidemic—including policy, medication, coverage and treatment expansion—and require physicians to take the lead in fighting for their patients. Leaders in Pennsylvania are on a mission to provide that help to both the people who are suffering in the opioid epidemics and the physicians who treat them.
A standing order for naloxone
Through a multiagency effort, Pennsylvania’s physician general Rachel Levine, MD, in October signed a statewide prescription for naloxone, making this lifesaving overdose reversal drug available to the entire population.
“As we wer...
Source: AMA Wire - May 27, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Troy Parks Source Type: news
