Tiffany Liu and Karl Koenig In today’s health care system, patients must struggle through a dizzying array of obstacles to receive their care, with little opportunity or support to become effective advocates in their own care. As a result, patients see multiple specialists before an effective treatment plan is implemented and often undergo duplicative and … Continue reading
Category Archives: Quality Improvement
Beyond Models: The Compassionate Intersection of Clinical Medicine, Sociobehavioral Health Determinants, and Delivery System Transformation
Abhishek Dalal and Uyen Phan In the September 2018 issue of Healthcare: The Journal of Delivery Science and Innovation, meet Amy Boutwell, MD, MPP and read this blog post for an enhanced understanding of the significance of Dr. Boutwell’s thought leadership and the field of delivery science in a manner aligned with social medicine’s … Continue reading
Helping the most vulnerable: using patient navigators to strengthen health systems in Guatemala
Katia Cnop, Jessica Hawkins, Anita Chary, David Flood, Kirsten Austad, Boris Martinez, Waleska Lopez, Peter Rohloff As Rosita walks through the halls towards her first radiology appointment, she cannot read a single sign. Nurses speak in Spanish nearby, but she cannot understand what they are saying. She passes women who look like her, dressed in … Continue reading
Implementation of a multidisciplinary, team-based model to treat chronic hepatitis C in the primary care setting: Lessons Learned
Randi Sokol, Jessica Early, Amanda Barner, Sarah Gottfried, Richard Gumpert, Lorky Libaridian, Virginia Morrison, Alexandra Santamaria, and Linda Shipton While the opioid overdose epidemic has become palpable across our country, another associated problem is rising to crisis levels: over the past five years, there has been a nearly 300% increase in the number of new … Continue reading
Linking Professionalism to the Implementation of Choosing Wisely
By Daniel Wolfson, MHSA and Anthony Suchman, MD In the paper, Choosing Wisely®: A Case Study of Constructive Engagement in Health Policy, we describe how a constructive engagement approach to the Choosing Wisely campaign helped build strong partnerships with more than 70 specialty societies, Consumer Reports, and a bevy of consumer groups and other stakeholders … Continue reading
Understanding Management in Healthcare
By K. John McConnell, PhD In the search for tools to build a high performing health system, many observers have pointed to the potential role for modern management practices, including the approaches of Lean management developed at Toyota and famously adopted by hospitals like Virginia Mason in Seattle. Atul Gawande has suggested that management tools … Continue reading
Cost Conscious Medical Care
By Jeff DellaVolpe As we enter the era of the Affordable Care Act roll out, despite the uncertainty, one truth remains: all of us as healthcare professionals are going to have to do more with less. Continue reading
