Three months after his effort to retool the state's healthcare system ran aground, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he still has an obligation to try to make healthcare available to Californians who lack coverage. His staff is working with healthcare advocates to fix the previous plan, even as the state faces a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, Schwarzenegger said in an interview. He added that he is not willing to break apart the plan to tackle only children's healthcare or address problems with the state insurance plan for the poor.
With two-thirds of the medical specialists having fled Iraq, and with the country's healthcare system shredded by war and sapped bare by corruption, the assembly of Iraqi heart specialists at Ibn al-Bitar Hospital for Cardiac Surgery in Baghdad was a triumph. The meeting marked the first time the conference, sponsored by the hospital and the Iraqi Cardiothoracic Society, was being held since 2003. More than 100 cardiac surgeons and cardiologists from around the country attended the meeting, where they heard talks on mitral valve surgery, angiography, coronary bypass surgery and other procedures to diagnose and treat heart disease.
Treating elderly cancer patients for five years costs Medicare $21.1 billion, according to a study by researchers at the U.S. National Cancer Institute. These costs are expected to increase dramatically as the population ages, say the study's authors. Costs varied over five years from about $20,000 for people with breast cancer or melanoma to $40,000 for people with lymphoma, brain or other cancers of the nervous system. To contain costs, the authors suggested that more emphasis be placed on cancer screening and early diagnosis, as well as lifestyle changes.
The National Patient Safety Foundation has awarded $200,000 in grants to fund two studies. One will examine how interruptions in the emergency room affect patient care. The other will collect data from medical events and near-miss reports to develop an error-solutions framework.
Federal government figures show a 200% increase in the number of hospital patients infected with Clostridium difficile, or C. difficile, from 2000 to 2005. The infection, which can be carried on hands and surfaces, can cause deadly diarrhea and blood poisoning.
Loyola University Hospital has purchased a $1.5 million robot that the pharmacy will use to help distribute medication to patients. The robot is designed to eliminate the life-threatening medication errors caused by humans.
In part three of a three-part interview, James Hartert, MD, MS, Chief Medical Officer for MinuteClinic, discusses what physicians might learn from the MinuteClinic experience.
Staff members and clinicians have a firsthand view of what goes on in your practice every day and may be able to recognize poor performance patterns and recurring patient complaints. As a result, a staff satisfaction survey used in conjunction with a patient satisfaction survey can help provide your management team with a complete picture illustrating how to better serve your patients.
The following are three steps to ensure that your staff survey will provide the results needed to improve service:
1. Compose, format, and tailor questions. Surveys should be handed out or mailed to all staff members, including practice managers, billers, physicians, nurse practitioners, medical assistants, and front desk staff members. Ask them to fill it out, without including their names, and send it back to the office to be reviewed.
Surveys must go to all employees or a representative sample from all departments. “Don’t skew the results,” Pat Kearney, RN, MPA, ARM, risk management advisor at Stevens & Lee in Lancaster, PA says. “You can’t pick and choose who you want to query because you’re not going to get the feedback you want. You have to be absolutely consistent about it.”
Keep the format clear and simple. Tailor the questions in the survey to the issues in your practice that you want solved, such as staff members using better phone etiquette when talking to patients, Kearney says. Include five to 10 questions with both open-ended and multiple-choice options. Provide a scale system for the survey questions ranging from one to five, correlating to “not good,” “fair,” “good,” “very good,” and “excellent.”
Lois Summers, an office administrator at General Internal Medicine in Lancaster, says the staff survey in her office offers a comment section where employees can write any problems that bother them or list suggestions to improve the quality of service in the office, such as to hire new staff members or providers to better handle the patient flow and office operations.
2. Organize results and provide feedback. Once the surveys begin to come back, start reviewing the results and compile a list of the most significant areas to address to your practice. Highlight the topics a majority of the people show a concern about, Kearney says.
Next, form an internal quality improvement committee composed of staff members. Meet on a regular basis and talk about any ongoing issues. The goal of this committee is to determine a sound plan of action that will help the office implement better service.
Although the survey may underscore many negative responses, Kearney says managers and physicians should always tell their staff members to celebrate their successes too. “The staff needs to know that not every patient is complaining about them,” she says. “If you get positive feedback, tell your staff that they are doing something right.”
3. Analyze and implement. The next step is to review the survey responses and find solutions to some of the obvious problems or most popular issues brought up by your staff members. Kearney says to make sure that you have calculated the numbers and discuss the results with your lead physician, considering the root causes of these problems.
Shannon Sousa is the editor of The Doctor's Office. She may be reached at Ssousa@hcpro.com. This story was adapted from one that first appeared in the March edition of The Doctor's Office, a publication by HealthLeaders Media.
A recent survey by a management consulting firm found that more than half of those surveyed say that hotels are better at meeting a customer's needs than providers. The negative perceptions have real consequences as well: 25% of those surveyed say they have switched or have thought about switching providers because of bad customer service experiences. One in four have used or thought about using a walk-in center to avoid a visit to a doctor's office, hospital, or clinic. Improving service will not be easy, either, say the study's authors, because better understanding of patient needs is generally not part of healthcare reform discussions.
Americans who get health insurance for their families through their jobs have seen their premiums increase 10 times faster than their income in recent years, according to a study released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The study shows that a growing share of workers' earnings is being absorbed by the increasing cost of health insurance. Nationwide, the amount employees pay for family coverage increased 30 percent from 2001 to 2005, while family policyholders' income increased just 3 percent over the same period.
