Optimizing Patient Care | Distance Learning Systems (DLSI)

Physician Efficiency vs. Patient Involvement in Patient Care

Having to go through a medical process can really be a frustrating experience especially when the patient is left unknowing about it. But how much does a patient want to know about and be involved in their own care? The response to this question cannot be fully relied on a single answer simply because many personalities and emotional complexities are involved when it comes to patient care.

Doctors like to simplify issues into neat categories, each of which have a clear management plan. This, however, is not necessarily applicable in patient care especially when it involves different personalities and emotions. One cannot simply eliminate the feelings of patients especially when satisfaction of the care they receive is involved.

In this case, the battle between increased physician efficiency through well-planned medical processes and better healthcare understanding buy the patient is the dilemma. Which of the two is best for patient care? There is reasonable argument for both.

A well thought of medical plan can be beneficial to an extent. There are physicians that prefer to spend their day practicing in a world of medical fact and deductive reasoning without taking into consideration patient reaction. The more practice, the less the mistakes are. But it can be argued that higher efficiency does not represent the rate at which patients are satisfied customers.

On the patient side, the ability of the medical team to involve them in their own care and make them aware of the plan lessen the patient’s frustrations with treatment. Doctors that are well-loved by their patients are those who spend time with them, to answer questions and provide a picture of what the coming days and weeks might look like. However, it can be argued that most of the questions can be answered not necessarily by the doctors themselves but by a less senior and equally able medical practitioners working for the admitting service.

Both have valid arguments and probably the best patient care in one that involves both as well.

Revolutionizing Patient Care

From airlines trying to do something different, to a police department seeking to evaluate its effectiveness in the roads, Google Glass is constantly applied in many useful ways, even if there have been several difficulties. Even so, you can add Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) to the list of useful Google uses. On his blog, BIDMC chief information official John Halamka shared that his medical center ran a lead program that used Glass for an in-house patient information system that was designed in the emergency department. Here’s how they used Glass: A QR code is placed outside an emergency department room, which a physician can check out using Google Glass. After checking, Glass shows the physician everything there is to know about the individual in the room, such as vital signs, lab results, issues, and other info. This re-imagines the status quo up until now, which includes having to redirect attention away from a patient in order to use a computer and read any related details.

Integrated with the ED Dash panel, a program that medical centers use to observe patient circulation, the customized application uses Glass’ action support to communicate with the user interface, its camcorders to evaluate QR requirements and execute various speech instructions. The medical center made a few variations to Glass, such as iPhone pairing, including an exterior battery pack, allowing straight scrolling by slanting your head, and other optimizations.

Fortunately though, BIDMC is not the only medical center in the country that plans to change the way physicians take care of their sufferers the Rhode Island Hospital, which will use Glass in its emergency department. Both plan to provide their applications using Glass in the E. R., though RIH will originally restrict the program to E.R. sufferers affected with skin rashes or other skin-related issues and who are okay with a Glass-wearing physician.

Ultimately, both hospitals’ programs provide a lot of potential in enhancing patient care while also improving doctors’ performance. All of a sudden, having an ambulance team equipped with Glass, which would let a physician back at the medical center know exactly what to prepare to immediately provide patient care the moment they step in the medical center, is not that far-fetched of an idea. BIDMC will move out the program, which was in testing up until now, in a matter of weeks, while RIH will most likely move out its program after its following six-month study is over.

Strategies For Patient-Centered Care

Nearly 200 medical professionals from around the state gathered in Manchester to share their communities’ techniques to providing Vermonters with high-quality, patient-centered medical care. “With all the state and federal policy changes ongoing, medical service suppliers remain targeted on why we are so deeply engaged in this work, to create lasting improvements in patient care and community wellness,” says Bea Grause, President and CEO of the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (VAHHS).

The conference provided an opportunity for members to understand about colleagues’ experiences with new techniques to clinical care, finance and governance issues. The meeting’s centerpiece was a “town hall” session in which members shared ideas and strategies medical service suppliers are employing to ensure Vermonters receive high-quality medical care. The session also targeted on giving sufferers and families a voice in their care. “Patients want authentic engagement in care choices,” says Ben Chu, Board Chair of the American Hospital Association. “It’s exciting to understand about the efforts ongoing in Vermont that will interact with sufferers in a way that educates them about their options and respects their needs and values.”

The VAHHS Annual Meeting took place during a time of rapid and significant changes. Medical centers and other suppliers around the state are developing OneCare Vermont, a provider network established to eliminate unnecessary care, use resources wisely and interact with sufferers in their wellness and fitness. In October, many individuals and small companies will begin purchasing health insurance coverage through Vermont Health Connect, the state’s new online health insurance coverage market. The state is also beginning work on a federally-funded State Innovation Model (SIM) project to test new patient care delivery and payment models. “Vermont continues to lead on medical care reform,” says Raymond Hurd, Regional Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). “We are excited that Vermont is using an innovation model as another way to improve high quality of patient care and individual experience while lowering the cost of medical care for its citizens.”

Optimizing Patient Care and Safety

Rideout Health, a non-profit community-based healthcare program, and RGP Healthcare™, a department of Resources Global Professionals (NASDAQ: RECN), declared that Rideout has selected and is applying Pavisse™, a cutting-edge technology for tracking and guaranteeing individual protection. Rideout operates facilities and services located throughout Yuba, Sutter and The state of Nevada counties. They include acute-care healthcare centers Rideout Memorial and Fremont Medical Center; the Heart Center at Rideout; the Rideout Cancer Center, associated with UC Davis Medical Center; out-patient primary and specialized treatment centers and a host of additional services, such as senior living services, home health, hospice and durable healthcare equipment.

Pavisse, developed by RGP Healthcare, is a new extensive occurrence control solution designed to help healthcare centers manage individual safety, individual privacy and other compliance-related functions across the enterprise. “We will be one of the first healthcare centers in the Sacramento region to set up this software,” said Istikram Qaderi, M.D., Senior V.P. and Chief Quality Officer at Rideout. “We’ll first set up Pavisse at Rideout Memorial and once the program is running nicely, we’ll look to using it at other locations in our organization to help us continually monitor and improve the superiority of our patient care, which is always our priority.”

Dr. Qaderi, a former physician, moved his career focus recently to helping healthcare and patient care organizations work with doctors and other staff to arrange clinical care and patient-centered solutions in applications for performance improvement. He has spoken and published substantially on subjects such as quality, doctor and team engagement, safety, individual fulfillment, performance quality and culture change. Dr. Qaderi sees RGP Healthcare President Radgia Cook as an “innovator” in patient safety and incident control and further described the Pavisse product as life changing. “Pavisse is just one of several state-of-the-art tools we will use to deliver on this objective,” Dr. Qaderi said. “It is extensive, user-friendly, and easy to set up and personalized to each facility’s needs. And RGP professionals are available to help us reap the most benefit.”

Said Cook, “Rideout Health is just the type of forward-thinking partner we sought. We are thrilled about integrating with Rideout Health as they continue to serve as a national model for the delivery of quality healthcare.”