Blog
Greater use of geriatricians in the hospital setting could reduce health care costs while maintaining quality of care, but there are fewer than four certified geriatricians in the United States per 10,000 individuals 75 years of age or older.
Blog
Medication non-adherence affects up to 40 percent of older adults, especially those with chronic conditions, and is associated with poor outcomes, more hospitalizations, and higher mortality. A new paradigm that clarifies joint provider–patient responsibility is needed.
Research Brief
Analyses indicated that although physicians uniformly felt responsible for assessing and promoting adherence to prescriptions, only a minority of them asked detailed questions about adherence.
Journal Article
The authors assessed the appropriateness of recommendations for hysterectomies done for nonemergency and nononcologic indications for 497 California women. Seventy percent of the hysterectomies were judged to have been recommended inappropriately.
Commentary
Before we allow others to implement policies attempting to optimize the use of physician time or reduce the amount of equivocal or inappropriate care, we need to understand what physicians think about these issues and what they are prepared to do about them, writes Robert H. Brook.
Journal Article
The risk of medical malpractice varies substantially according to physician specialty.
Journal Article
This article explores provider opinions about responsibility for medication adherence and examine physician--patient interactions to illustrate how adherence discussions are initiated.
Research Brief
Vaccine-preventable diseases take a heavy toll on U.S. adults despite the widespread availability of vaccines. Office-based providers can do more to promote adult vaccinations but need clearer guidance and a better business case to offer them.
Journal Article
Physician organizations (POs)—independent practice associations and medical groups—located in lower socioeconomic status (SES) areas may score poorly in pay-for-performance (P4P) programs.
News Release
Promoting immunizations as a part of routine office-based medical practice is needed to improve adult vaccination rates, a highly effective way to curb the spread of diseases across communities, prevent needless illness and deaths, and lower health care costs.
Report
Promoting immunizations as a part of routine office-based medical practice is needed to improve adult vaccination rates, a highly effective way to curb the spread of diseases across communities, prevent needless illness and deaths, and lower health care costs.
Journal Article
Treatment of stroke patients is highly time-sensitive. The risk of death or disability caused by intracranial hemorrhage may increase with both stroke size and time.
Journal Article
In the 1960s, a new paradigm for training physicians emerged: one that combined clinical training and its focus on individual patients with a research training focused on studying the health of populations.
Journal Article
Pediatric residents who support further reductions in work-hours believe reductions have positive effects on patient care, education, and quality of life.
Journal Article
Emergency medicine is poised as a specialty to respond to health care changes and to lead the charge in transforming a disconnected, inefficient, and costly system.
Project
A new online tool, called the "Unintended Consequences Guide," is available from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to help hospitals and other health care organizations anticipate, avoid, and address problems that can occur when adopting and using electronic health records.
Research Brief
The most comprehensive analysis of the risk of malpractice claims by physician specialty in more than two decades finds that U.S. physicians have a greater than 75% career-long risk of facing litigation. In some specialties, doctors can be virtually certain of a lawsuit over the course of their careers. However, the vast majority of those claims will not result in payment to a plaintiff.
Journal Article
The likelihood of malpractice suits and the size of indemnity payments vary across specialties, but by age 65, 75% of physicians in low-risk specialties had faced a malpractice claim, as compared with 99% of physicians in high-risk specialties.
Commentary
Because the budget crisis is really a crisis, it behooves physicians to answer the waste question as rapidly as possible. Without an answer, there is no hope that an appropriate policy process for reining in health care costs will be identified, writes Robert H. Brook.
Journal Article
This commentary argues that physicians must take the lead in identifying and eliminating waste in US health care.
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