Physicians

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Gender Pay Gap Among Doctors, America's Labor Shortage, 'Hacking Equity': RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on the pay gap between female and male doctors, understanding America’s weird job market, social and emotional learning, and more.

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Can Primary Care Networks and Models of Vertical Integration Coexist in the NHS?

Vertical integration with a hospital helps primary care practices that might otherwise have closed to remain in operation. It thereby creates the opportunity for the continued development and improvement of local primary care for patients.

Manbinder Sidhu, Jon Sussex

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How Hospitals Could Step in to Help Manage GP Practices

The supply of doctors in primary care, known as 'GPs' in the UK, is falling behind a growing demand for their services, as GPs leave general practice in large numbers. One way to help struggling GP practices could be vertical integration—combining health care organizations operating at different stages along the patient pathway.

Manbinder Sidhu, Jon Sussex

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Moving on from Telehealth-by-Desperation: What Will Make Telehealth Stick

During the COVID-19 pandemic telehealth has helped to maintain continuity of care for millions of Americans, preserve personal protective equipment, and facilitate social distancing. But that does not mean that telehealth will be embraced by patients and providers in the long run.

Lori Uscher-Pines

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The Link Between Workplace Diversity and the Gender Pay Gap

Many factors explain the gender earnings gap, including workplace biases, differences in how credit is attributed, and differences in how men and women negotiate. But another factor could influence the pay women receive: the number of men in their workplace.

Christopher M. Whaley @cm_whaley, Anupam B. Jena

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A New Way to Capture the Patient Experience

Researchers have developed a more effective and reliable way for patients to provide narrative feedback about the care they receive. When the right questions are asked, patients' answers can help health care providers better understand the patient experience and learn how they could improve.

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Getting Doctors to Make Better Decisions Will Take More than Money and Nudges

While monetary incentives and behavioral nudges both have their strengths, neither is enough to reliably change clinician behavior and improve quality of care. Organizational culture provides another important lens to understand why clinicians are practicing in a certain way and to put forth more comprehensive, long-term solutions.

Yusuke Tsugawa, John N. Mafi

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When RAND Applied Weapons Research to Health Care Delivery

In the 1970s, it was assumed that new physicians wouldn't set up practice in America's small towns. RAND economists used software originally designed to estimate damages from a nuclear bomb to calculate the effects of placing doctors in specific locations.

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Should the Definition of Health Include a Measure of Tolerance?

Involving the medical community in helping to measure and increase tolerance could help make individuals and communities healthier. Since hate is both deadly and contagious, now is the time to engage the medical profession in eradicating it.

Robert H. Brook

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Responsible e-Prescribing Needs e-Discontinuation

Implementation of electronic prescribing has been a big success in health information technology. But most e-prescribing systems don't allow electronic cancellation of orders. Adding this feature could help reduce medication errors.

Shira H. Fischer @ShiraFischer, Adam J. Rose

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Can a Nurse Practitioner Replace a Physician?

The VA is considering expanding the role of nurse practitioners in order to provide veterans timely access to primary-care services. Research has shown that nurse practitioners working in collaborative settings can provide high-quality care.

John N. Mafi, Bruce E. Landon

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Can Hospital Services Work in Primary Care Settings?

Shifting health care from hospitals to the community will only be justified if patient satisfaction and convenience is valued above costs to the NHS, or if this shift reduces health care costs in the long term.

Celine Miani, Eleanor Winpenny

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Relationships Between Physician Professional Satisfaction and Patient Safety

Health system leaders should view regular and detailed assessment of physician professional satisfaction as an invaluable early warning system for potential threats to quality and safety. But simply surveying doctors on their overall levels of job satisfaction isn't enough.

Mark W. Friedberg

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Scoring the Surgeon Scorecard

There is no tradeoff between recognizing the serious methodological problems in the ProPublica Surgeon Scorecard, improving the Scorecard, and encouraging providers to release their own data. All three can and should be done simultaneously.

Mark W. Friedberg

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We Need to Know What Physicians Are Thinking

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.

Robert H. Brook

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The Role of Physicians in Controlling Medical Care Costs and Reducing Waste

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.

Robert H. Brook

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Physician Compensation, Cost, and Quality

Pay for performance, transparency, and other innovative ways of compensating physicians will work only if, at the same time, the system for providing care is changed to one that has clear objectives and provides specific tools to help physicians achieve those objectives, writes Robert H. Brook.

Robert H. Brook

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Medical Leadership in an Increasingly Complex World

It is time for physicians to think beyond making their institution, practice, or professional society better. The population needs, and deserves, such leadership, writes Robert H. Brook.

Robert H. Brook

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Continuing Medical Education: Let the Guessing Begin

It is time for a change before innovative medical researchers develop a new array of tests and measurements, making it even less likely that physicians will have the right answer, writes Robert Brook.

Robert H. Brook

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Quality, Transparency, and the US Government

If the government is demanding transparency of physicians and hospitals, the very least the physicians and hospitals should do is demand transparency of the government, writes Robert Brook.

Robert H. Brook