Media coverage about hospital medicine in the last two weeks includes SHM’s recent partnership with Cerner, success and growth in hospital medicine in the U.S. healthcare system, an encouraging look at the hospitalist model from the perspective of an outpatient physician, end-of-life care and implications of the Meaningful Use program.
Cerner and SHM jointly issued a press release highlighting their partnership to integrate Project BOOST into Cerner’s electronic health record system. The two organizations joined forces to positively influence behavior change in the hospital and lead to more efficient care transitions. In addition to the press release being distributed widely, details from the release were also included in a healthcare IT brief from Becker’s Hospital Review.
Positive press for hospital medicine also appeared in national and regional news outlets. Bob Wachter, MD, MHM, contributed a piece to The Wall Street Journal discussing hospitalists’ roles in innovating the U.S. health care system, and an article in Arkansas Business placed local hospitalists in the spotlight to review why a number of area clinicians chose the specialty and how they have positively impacted patient outcomes. An editorial in MedPage Today outlined the patient focus of the hospitalist model and why the model is extremely valuable not only for patients, but for outpatient physicians like the author.
Two issues impacting hospital medicine, end-of-life care and the Meaningful Use program appeared in The Washington Post and MedPage Today. In the Post, Amy Berman, a senior program officer at the Hartford Foundation and a nurse with fatal breast cancer described how end-of-life care has had a transformative effect on her life, and MedPage Today discussed the mixed reactions to the Meaningful Use program for electronic health records.
SHM and the Journal of Hospital Medicine hosted our first-ever tweet chat based on new research published in the Journal. You can catch up on the full conversation on Twitter or the highlights of the #JHMChat on Storify.
SHM Media Highlights: September 24 – October 8, 2015
SHM’s Project BOOST Integrates Into Cerner EHR Processes
Cerner, a global leader in health care technology, and the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) announced the integration of SHM’s Project BOOST™ toolkit into Cerner’s Readmission Prevention Solution, available within the Cerner Millennium® electronic health record (EHR). The integration of Project BOOST into Cerner Millennium provides clinicians with a comprehensive intervention strategy to optimize the patient discharge process.
October 5, 2015
Globe Newswire (also appeared in a healthcare IT brief in Becker’s Hospital Review)
How Hospitalists Have Innovated U.S. Health Care
“The U.S. health-care system is often criticized for its failure to innovate. With our costs far higher than those of any other developed country and our outcomes, on average, no better, such critiques are not unfounded. However, over the past 20 years, a new specialty has developed that represents a substantial innovation. The story of this specialty–hospitalists–illustrates our great potential for innovation. As we consider all sorts of new innovations, from tele-visits, to precision medicine, to new delivery models such as accountable care organizations, it’s a story worth telling.” – Dr. Bob Wachter
September 27, 2015
The Wall Street Journal
http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2015/09/27/how-hospitalists-have-innovated-u-s-health-care/
Hospitalist Jobs Growing in Popularity
Sudheer Koyagura always wanted to be a doctor so he could help sick people regain their health. When Koyagura was serving his medical residency in Huntsville, Alabama, he learned of hospitalist programs that allowed doctors to practice their crafts almost solely in hospitals. After finishing a fellowship in geriatric medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Koyagura took a job as a hospitalist with Northwest Health System five years ago.
October 5, 2015
Arkansas Business
http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/107447/hospitalist-jobs-growing-in-popularity?page=all
Let Hospitalists Do Their Jobs
“Should your primary care doctor always be your doctor? Do you really want your outpatient primary care provider to be the doctor taking care of you on the inpatient service? I think our care model has changed, and for a multitude of reasons this way of doing things no longer seems valid.” – Fred N. Pelzman, MD
October 1, 2015
MedPage Today
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PatientCenteredMedicalHome/PatientCenteredMedicalHome/53846
A nurse with fatal breast cancer says end-of-life discussions saved her life
“News reports say you will soon make a final decision about paying doctors and other providers who talk to their patients about end-of-life planning. I have a fatal form of breast cancer, and I’d like to tell you how such conversations have allowed me to survive, and live well, in the five years since my diagnosis.
I am a nurse, a nationally recognized expert in care of the aged and senior program officer at the John A. Hartford Foundation, which is devoted to improving the care of older people in the United States. And while this metastatic cancer will one day kill me, the advanced-care planning conversations I have had with my health-care team have been lifesaving since my diagnosis.” – Amy Berman
September 28, 2015
The Washington Post
Mixed Reviews for CMS’s Final Meaningful Use Rules
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released final rules for Stage 3 of its Meaningful Use program for electronic health records, frustrating politicians and medical organizations that had called for a delay. The final rules were included as part of a joint release late Tuesday from CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology of regulations related to certification of electronic health record (EHR) systems and rules for Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs.
October 7, 2015
MedPage Today
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PracticeManagement/InformationTechnology/53952
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