This issue of SHM & Hospital Medicine in the News features:
- Details of the revamped maintenance of certification assessment program from the ABIM
- The opioid addiction epidemic, including the possibility of mandatory training for doctors who prescribe opioids and the epidemic’s effect on hospitalizations and hospital costs
- The rise of medical errors to the third leading cause of death in the United States
- Potential penalties for physicians associated with tight MACRA deadlines surrounding the updated quality and IT measures that go into effect on January 1, 2017
- A look at North America’s first all-digital hospital, which has automated over 75 percent of its functions, including pharmacy, laundry and food delivery
- A recent blog post from Dr. Brad Flansbaum on The Hospital Leader blog that was republished by Medscape
ABIM Announces Plans to Offer Physicians MOC Assessment Options in January 2018
The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) today announced plans to begin offering a new Maintenance of Certification (MOC) assessment option in January 2018. ABIM’s assessment taken every 10 years will remain available as a second option, and both options will reflect the input ABIM has received from a diverse range of physicians and stakeholders over the past year. Physicians will be able to choose MOC assessment formats that meet their needs.
May 5, 2016
American Board of Internal Medicine Newsroom
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Opioid Prescribing Gets Another Look as F.D.A. Revisits Mandatory Doctor Training
A pain management specialist, Dr. Nathaniel Katz, was stunned in 2012 when the Food and Drug Administration rejected a recommendation from an expert panel that had urged mandatory training for doctors who prescribed powerful painkillers like OxyContin. That panel had concluded that the training might help stem the epidemic of overdose deaths involving prescription narcotics, or opioids.
May 2, 2016
The New York Times
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Opioid epidemic fueling hospitalizations, hospital costs
Every day, headlines detail the casualties of the nation’s surge in heroin and prescription painkiller abuse: the funerals, the broken families and the patients cycling in and out of treatment. Now, a new study sheds light on another repercussion — how this public health problem is adding to the nation’s ballooning health care costs and who’s shouldering that burden.
May 2, 2016
Kaiser Health News
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Researchers: Medical errors now third leading cause of death in United States
Nightmare stories of nurses giving potent drugs meant for one patient to another and surgeons removing the wrong body parts have dominated recent headlines about medical care. Lest you assume those cases are the exceptions, a new study by patient safety researchers provides some context. Their analysis, published in the BMJ on Tuesday, shows that “medical errors” in hospitals and other health care facilities are incredibly common and may now be the third leading cause of death in the United States — claiming 251,000 lives every year, more than respiratory disease, accidents, stroke and Alzheimer’s.
May 3, 2016
The Washington Post
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Tight MACRA deadlines could result in doc penalties
Health information technology experts say the tight timelines surrounding a new round of clinical quality and IT measures may result in penalties for some physicians if those measures require significant changes to electronic health records and other systems. The CMS this week produced an 80-page plan on how it would select the quality measures used in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System, or MIPS.
May 3, 2016
Modern Healthcare
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Inside North America’s first all-digital hospital
The digital experience at Humber River Hospital in northwest Toronto begins the moment patients arrive. The sleek, square building feels like a small airport, with each registration area designated with a letter. Before arriving, patients look online to find out their check-in zone. Humber River is North America’s first all-digital hospital. Inside its corridors, there are robots sorting medication. Automated guided vehicles deliver lunch trays. Machines deliver the pneumatic tubes that carry blood samples from patient floors to the laboratory.
April 30, 2016
Modern Healthcare
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Purge This Word from Your Vocabulary – It’s Likely Harming Patients and Wasting Real Money
A little something I sent to my residents—and I post it here as the issue has relevance to every clinician. Also, a wise professor offered me something to contemplate. As you read, consider whether this is a professionalism or systems issue. If the latter, are the behaviors in accord with the signals we give our trainees, nocturnists, and shift workers? Further, do we then have a system designed to provide us with the results we are asking for?
May 10, 2016
Medscape (Originally published on The Hospital Leader blog by Dr. Brad Flansbaum)
Click here for the full story.
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