Western Pennsylvania Healthcare News

Covering healthcare news in the Pittsburgh region and beyond.

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Strong Practice Leaders Understand the Competition

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By Nick Hernandez

Practice managers must be keenly aware of what competing practices are doing as well as practices outside of their catchment area. Practice management requires a firm focus on the competition; identifying its strengths and vulnerabilities is crucial. Since managing a successful practice requires decision and action based on situational awareness, identification of your competition’s expectations and preparations is also important.

Because the healthcare landscape is changing so rapidly, accurate and timely information regarding what competing practices are doing is a prerequisite for success. It is said that Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (an intelligent German WWII commander dubbed the “Desert Fox”) once declared, “It is not that one general is more brilliant or experienced than the other; it is a question of which general has a better appreciation of the battlefield.”

This is why I maintain that knowledge of your competition is a key function of effective practice management. To be clear, practice management is about making and executing decisions, but a market analysis can help support a smart decision-making process. [Read more…]

The Rise of the “-ists”: A Model Offering New Opportunities and Challenges for Locum Tenens Physicians

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Turner Bio PicBy Joseph Turner

The hospitalist model of care has spread like wildfire since its introduction 20 years ago. In the mid-1990s, there were fewer than 1,000 hospitalists practicing in the United States; today, there are more than 44,000 in approximately 72 percent of U.S. hospitals. Hospitalist programs have been shown to more than pay for themselves by improving outcomes, reducing length of stay and enhancing hospital efficiency. Primary care physicians like them because hospitalists reduce their rounding responsibilities, and patients like them because they receive greater focus and attention during their hospital stays.

This model has proven so effective that it has sparked another trend: the rise of other “-ists.” Laborists, for example, are obstetrician/gynecologist physicians who work full-time in a hospital, delivering babies, rather than seeing patients in an office setting like a traditional OB/GYN.

In a 2011 survey by Today’s Hospitalist, more than 75 percent of the hospitalists interviewed said they worked in hospitals exclusively, but there was a significant segment that branched out into other settings such as skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), long-term acute care (LTAC) and hospice/palliative care services. In particular, transitionalists as they’re known—hospitalists who work part of the time outside of acute care in LTAC or SNFs—are drawing attention for their potential not only to help hospitals improve patient care, but also to help them reduce length of stay and avoid financial penalties for preventable readmissions.1  Subspecialties in neurology, orthopedics, and general surgery are other areas in which the hospitalist model is being applied beyond the role of primary care.
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Starting with a CLEAN SLATE

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Nick JacobsBy Nick Jacobs

In the book “Change or DIE” there is a reference to the fact that, when confronted with life altering decisions, about 90% of us make the choice not to change, not because we are suicidal or obtuse, but because resisting change seems to be built into our DNA.

Immediately before my son went to college, he appeared in the kitchen and asked us if he could “get some things off his chest.”   He wanted to start this next part of his life with a clean slate.   The first thing that came out of his mouth was, “Dad, your car does go 140mph,” and that was the beginning of about thirty very uncomfortable minutes of reconciliation.

As we enter the New Year, there is at least one thing that I’d like to “get off my chest,” because it has become increasingly apparent to me that I’m conflicted.  I’ve always embraced the underdog in both my life and my career.  As a teacher, my personal mission was usually wrapped around helping some kid who could have easily gone to the dark side.  This typically was accomplished by motivating him or her into attaining a goal that was perceived to be unattainable.  It was a “Climb every mountain“ scenario where their own self-worth became evident to them, and they realized that all of life does not have to be bad.   Many of those students are still my friends decades later.

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Healthcare Leaders Emerge through Volunteer-Recruitment Collaborations

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Jeffrey H. Finkelstein copyBy Jeffrey H. Finkelstein

When it comes to demonstrating leadership, amazing things happen when healthcare professionals and volunteer organizations collaborate to meet the needs of the community.

Case in point: A Russian immigrant woman’s gum disease was so advanced that, ashamed of her appearance, she had given up laughter. Hand over mouth, she arrived at the Squirrel Hill Health Center (SHHC) desperate for dentures, so her dental problem would not be an embarrassment at her son’s upcoming wedding. She had no money for dentistry, no dental insurance. She could not speak English. Nevertheless, the center’s Russian translator was able to refer her to William Spatz, DMD, a dentist and oral surgeon, who provided care at no charge to the immigrant. Dr. Spatz said that after treatment, the change in the patient was “like the difference between night and day.”

Thanks to the efforts of a growing number of physicians who are part of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Maimonides Society, such outcomes are becoming even more frequent at the SHHC.

[Read more…]