In the practice of medicine no two worlds are farther apart than the inpatient and outpatient ones. There is a true disconnection between the goings-on in the hospital and the support staff back at the office. Unfortunately, this gap often leads to loss of patient follow up, suboptimal care, and in certain instances, hospital [...]
You work hard as a medical provider taking care of patients. There are the countless hours interacting with nurses and families. Then comes the documentation, which seems to get more demanding with each passing year. To not receive compensation for your work is not an option. Yet somehow we have processes in place that [...]
The process of rounding at the hospital has been paper-based since the beginning of time. Providers print a list of patients, fold it neatly into their pocket, and proceed to venture from floor to floor of each hospital they cover. Along the way they diligently collect paper facesheets containing patient demographics and insurance information, [...]
One of the most frequent complaints from practicing physicians is the erosion over the past 20 years of time spent with patients. Direct patient care now only accounts for 30% of total provider time. So, what’s the other 70%? Charting and clerical work. And for the doctors rounding at multiple facilities, throw in driving [...]
This is the time for change. Wanted or not, medicine has evolved and adapted. Doctors are finally looking at their daily lives and are seeking out ways to make it easier. Desire for improvement seems to be driven by one part battle fatigue, one part enlightenment. We healthcare providers are now asking “Why? Why [...]
Uncertainty has become the new reality. America and the world are struggling to cope with the impact of an infectious pandemic. All aspects of normal life have been affected, forcing us to take hard looks at behaviors that were previously felt to be innocuous. As a practicing physician, I recognize the challenge of providing [...]
Secure messaging in the practice of medicine has become commonplace. Adhering to federal privacy laws has become a priority among physicians and healthcare organizations. Working these tools into the typical workflow for the average medical provider is not always easy. Check out three blogs that provide a detailed overview of secure messaging features, myths [...]
Mobile charge capture has become a popular tool to improve physician efficiency when rounding on hospitalized patients. Allowing doctors to submit charges at the point-of-care eliminates the need to carry around billing sheets and encourages timely submission of charges. This has led to improved charge accuracy and increases in revenue due to reductions in [...]
I spent several years working as a Medical Assistant in a Cardiology clinic. It was interesting and rewarding work, but it had its challenges. One of the biggest was keeping the doctors on schedule as much as possible. One electrophysiologist who I worked with on occasion was so notoriously talkative that we developed a [...]
In 1992 I was the coolest kid on my block for a day. My dad, who always wanted the latest and greatest technology, had just brought home our first cordless phone. It was white with an extendable antenna. I brought my friends by after school to show it off, and one-by-one they called home [...]
