from Nick van Terhaiden Also known as Dr. Nick, Director, ECG management consultations
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Host of Healthcare upside down – #HCupsidedown
Years ago, when I was working as a junior doctor, one of my favorite tasks was finding a bed for a patient who needed to be admitted by the emergency department (ED). The system was simplified: we as a team or “service” were connected to specific wards in the hospital. We had an influence on the beds, but not absolute control; even now I am not sure who had the supreme power, but I suspect that it is in the administrative wing of the hospital, not in the clinicians.
But this system quickly broke down because we didn’t have enough beds for our group. They were already full of patients awaiting treatment, being diagnosed or recovering before discharge.
If the day at ED was busy, finding a bed meant calling all the wards to see if there were any vacancies. ED had a handwritten list on a whiteboard, but it was never up to date. Your best bet was to learn the ebb and flow of patients in different wards.
The idea that years later we are struggling with the same problem – in a day and age where you can track the delivery of your package to your doorstep or receive real-time updates for waiting in line for security at the local airport – in the most The best case is disappointing. We may have a slightly better feel for the beds in the facility with digital admission tracking, but we can’t easily tell if there are 1 bed or 20 available at a nearby hospital.
“As a nation, the United States has many silos,” said Omar Latif, DO. “Hospitals compete with each other. And when you do that, you can’t share information or knowledge from one hospital to another. “
Episode NOW on request
Dr. Latif is President and CEO of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. He joins me in talking about the need for increased data transparency, the removal of administrative burdens to get clinicians back to their patients’ beds, and why healthcare is like Given once, the massive container ship that famously got stuck in the Suez Canal. Here are some excerpts.
Transparency of data during a crisis.
When the pandemic broke out, one of the challenges we recognized here at Rush University Medical Center was to find a better way to put the right patient in the right facility to offer the best care they needed so that there were no patients who did not need high-level care using a high-level bed, and there were no patients waiting in the lobby to receive a high-level bed when they were at risk of death. So the way to fill that gap was by opening up data transparency. What created the pandemic was the immediate need to share this information. He became a driver. “
Returning clinicians to bed.
“I have never met a nurse who is disappointed with someone’s help by the bed. I have met many, many nurses who are really upset by the amount of paperwork they have to do because it prevents them from going back to bed and making someone feel better. I don’t want to train the next generation of healthcare providers to be great documentaries – I want to train them to be great doctors, great nurses. We need a better system to capture and reward the people who provide care. “
The need for a unified vision for healthcare.
“People who put in an incredible amount of effort and risked their own well-being to fight the pandemic are exhausted and burning at an unprecedented rate. If we do not fundamentally change the way we provide care, then we are not doing good things for providers and we are not doing good for patients. So opening up access is the most obvious thing we as a country need to do. What needs to happen is that as a nation, we need to decide what our expectations are of the world of healthcare and then provide the resources to achieve that vision. If this is not done, then the only way to maintain a successful health infrastructure in the industry right now is to live within the current healthcare paradigm and how costs are reimbursed. It’s hard to be innovative. Innovation comes at a price for your day-to-day business. ”
About the Show
The United States spends more on health care per capita than any other country on the planet. So why not have better results? Why have the principles of capitalism not prevailed? And why do American consumers have so many problems accessing and paying for health care? Immerse yourself in these and other issues Head / down health care with ECG Director Dr. Nick van Terhaiden and guest panelists as they discuss the pros and cons of healthcare in the United States and how to make the system work for everyone.
This article was originally published on ECG management consultations blog and is republished here with permission.
