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You should want surgery residents for your operation. Here’s why.
A few months ago, I got the dreaded 2 a.m. consult from the emergency department. I met Mr. Smith, a man with a very strange looking and inflamed gallbladder. The abnormal appearance on ultrasound meant we had to discuss the possibility of malignancy. Instead of the usual 15-minute spiel about removing the gallbladder, I spoke to the patient and his wife for nearly an hour. I drew the anatomy. I discussed the full treatment algorithm. I answered their questions and concerns. They seemed appreciative and understanding. Ultimately, he signed his consent for surgery. I left the room feeling I had taken good care of this pa...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 19, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: James Wu, MD Tags: Physician Surgery Source Type: blogs

District of Columbia Makes Changes Transparency Law to Align with Open Payments
Late last week with only a photo attachment, the District of Columbia Department of Health announced to the pharmaceutical industry that the District is changing its gift reporting requirements to meet the requirements with the new Open Payments reporting. Chapter Eighteen of the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations requires manufacturers and labelers of prescription drugs dispensed in the District who engage in marketing in D.C. to report to the Department of Health their costs for pharmaceutical drug marketing in the District. Each manufacturer or labeler is required to report their annual prescription drug marke...
Source: Policy and Medicine - April 17, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs

Prescription Compliance at the ePharma Summit 2016
Last month, I attended the Institute for International Research’s (IIR) ePharma Summit in New York City. Managing communications for prescription discount card provider Watertree Health and having a background in technology and business, I was most interested in the disruptive health technology showcase and innovations challenge. One company’s presentation stood out in particular because of its mission to make prescription compliance easier: on-demand prescription delivery platform, Zipdrug, which has been featured in TechCrunch, Drug Store News and Crains New York.IIR invited Zi...
Source: ePharma Summit - April 14, 2016 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: #ePharma16 ePharma 2016 ePharma Summit ePharma Summit 2016 Health care medication nonadherence pharma marketing prescription compliance Telemedicine zipdrug Source Type: blogs

An Ophthalmic Photo and Video Tool for the iPhone
I purchased a neat little tool that allows me to use my iPhone 6s to take videos and photographs of the external surface of the eye. I am still learning how to maximize the photographs and videos, but the clinical and educational possibilities are really exciting. The Eidolon Photo Bluminator has the potential to take excellent still photographs and high-quality videos of the external surface of the eye.This tool allows photo filters that have blue LED light for fluorescein photos of the cornea or white LED illumination for photos of the anterior segment. Both are options for taking photos or shooting video. The lens provi...
Source: M2E Too! Mellick's Multimedia EduBlog - April 1, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs

The Challenges Of Rewarding Value Over Volume Without Penalizing Safety-Net Hospitals
Public and private insurers are increasingly paying health care providers based on the quality of care they provide rather than volume. This shift has generated some concerns about how performance on quality is measured and how rewards or penalties should be structured. This month’s Narrative Matters essay, “Mr. G and the Revolving Door: Breaking the Readmission Cycle at a Safety-Net Hospital,” authored by Carolyn Dickens and colleagues, provides a window on some of the controversy surrounding paying safety-net providers for quality performance. The essay tells the story of health care providers at a Chicago safety-n...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 30, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Teresa Coughlin and Adele Shartzer Tags: Elsewhere@ Health Affairs Featured Health Professionals Hospitals Medicare Narrative Matters Organization and Delivery Population Health Quality Hospital Readmission Reductions Program Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Source Type: blogs

ProPublica: Tying Open Payments Physician Data to Medicare Part D Data
ProPublica is once again trying to make a "correlation equals causation" argument between payments made to physicians and their prescribing patterns. ProPublica is arguing that an analysis they performed showed that "doctors who receive payments from the medical industry do indeed tend to prescribe drugs differently than their colleagues who don't." They are arguing that doctors who received more than $5,000 from companies in 2014 had the highest brand-name prescribing percentages, giving an example that among internists who received no payments, the average brand-name prescribing rate was 20%, compared to about 30% for ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - March 21, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs

Compliance Officers as Chief Data Analyst
With the US Sunshine reporting data fast approaching March 31, compliance teams are heads down in getting the spend records collected, audited and ready for final reporting. The frenzy of systems issues (both internal and CMS), personnel challenges and vendor management makes the race to the finish line a close call for most compliance team. How does one take a break to analyze the data before it goes in for submission? What are the risks for submitting data in the public domain without a pre-audit and analytical review? After conversations with a variety of compliance teams, we narrowed down the risks to three broad cat...
Source: Policy and Medicine - March 18, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs

CMS Opens Physician and Teaching Hospital Registration for Open Payments 2015 Data
CMS has announced that the Open Payments system is now open for physician and teaching hospital registration. While registering in the Open Payments system is not required for physicians or teaching hospitals, it is required in order to be able to review and dispute records attributed to them. The review and dispute period will begin in April 2016 and last for 45 days. When data submission ends, physicians and teaching hospitals who have registered can review and dispute any records attributed to them. The initial registration is a two-step process and takes approximately thirty minutes. First, register in the CMS Enterp...
Source: Policy and Medicine - March 13, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs

What’s New and In the Queue for Academic Medicine
Conclusions The hidden curriculum that health professional students experience regarding the care of patients with LEP is influenced by systems limitations and a learning environment and organizational culture that value efficiency over effective communication. Role modeling seems strongly linked to these factors as supervisors struggle with these same challenges. (Source: Academic Medicine Blog)
Source: Academic Medicine Blog - March 1, 2016 Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Journal Staff Tags: Featured Issue Preview creativity decision making hidden curriculum non-English speaking patients patient satisfaction person-centered care social determinants of health Source Type: blogs

Open Payments 2016 Updates: Companies Should Report Retired and Deceased Doctors
In politics it is sometimes noted that death does not necessarily prevent you from voting, in the case of Open Payments it doesn't stop you from being reported on either. On Tuesday, February 16, 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) hosted the first webinar in a series of webinars on the Open Payments program. Upcoming question and answer sessions have been announced via the Open Payments listserv and will be listed on the Open Payments website as they get closer. At the outset of the question and answer session, the Open Payments team presented a PowerPoint going over the system enhanceme...
Source: Policy and Medicine - February 17, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs

Bio-Tech U, Version 2 - Current Board Member of Four Biotechnology Companies, Fomer Pfizer Director, Former Genentech Executive to be President of Stanford
DiscussionTo summarize, the incoming president of Stanford, on of the most prestigious American universities, one of the foremost US sites for biomedical research, and home to an equally prestigious medical school and academic health center, spent most of the last 15 years heavily involved with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He was a top Genentech executive for eight of those years, served as a director of the then biggest US pharmaceutical company, and currently is a member of the boards of directors of four biotechnology companies, and is chairman of one of them. He earned nearly $2.5 millio...
Source: Health Care Renewal - February 11, 2016 Category: Health Management Tags: boards of directors conflicts of interest Genentech Stanford Source Type: blogs

Physician Payment Sunshine Act: Open Payments Final 2015 Data Submission and Attestation Help
In our latest endeavor to try to help you wade through the lengthy regulations known as Open Payments leading up to the March 31 submission deadline, we drafted the following article on the Final Submission and Attestation process. In order to meet the requirements of Open Payments, officials from manufacturers and GPOs are required to submit final payment or other transfer of data value or ownership/investment interest data. In addition to the actual submission of the data, authorized officials must attest to the accuracy of the data. Once the final data is submitted, the Open Payments system then matches your submitt...
Source: Policy and Medicine - February 4, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs

What smartphone apps can learn from the humble pager
Despite high interest and hopes, the clinical adoption of new mobile technologies such as smartphone apps and wearables for health care has been modest. While some clinicians and clinics are of course using the newest connected devices and apps, most would report they don’t regularly use mobile health technology yet. But they actually do. The vast majority of clinicians have been using mobile health technology for decades without even realizing it. Understand the success of this hidden mobile technology offers insights into how and why clinicians adopt technology as well as why they have been slower to adopt apps and c...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - January 30, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: John Torous, MD Tags: Tech Mobile health Source Type: blogs

CMS Updates 2014 Open Payments Data
Conclusion It is promising that CMS is yearly updating their data. Publishing outdated or incorrect data is not being transparent, but instead, can be considered to be unknowingly misleading. As we have previously written, the push for transparency can have concerning ramifications for patients and physicians alike. Patients who rely on Open Payments data, and the doctors who serve those patients, deserve to, at the very least, have reliable information presented through the Open Payments website. We continue to advocate for life science companies and physicians keeping track of their reporting for Open Payments, to he...
Source: Policy and Medicine - January 20, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs