Sharing successes, challenges and daily happenings in the Department of Medicine
On October 1, 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and The Joint Commission (TJC) launched a Sepsis Core Measure for all 4000 Joint Commission-accredited U.S. hospitals. Core Measures are evidence-based process measures to reduce morbidity and mortality. Well-known examples include inpatient pneumococcal vaccination, venous thromboembolism prophylaxis requirements and achieving quick door-to-balloon time(...)
This week marks the end of my first year as your inaugural Executive Vice Chair. It has been and continues to be a phenomenal experience to serve the faculty and staff of our great Department of Medicine. I am extremely grateful to all of you for your support and encouragement during the past 12 months(...)
Within the Department of Medicine we have a broad array of ambulatory practices, with diverse patients, practitioners and locations. This richness is our strength and challenge in many ways. Initiatives designed to make both the patient’s and practitioner’s experience positive and more uniform will require a coordinated effort to identify best practices in the outpatient(...)
The word “innovation” appears almost everywhere. According to Google’s ngram word use database, the word overtook “invention” around 1970. Now, almost 50 years later, the word is used as a noun, verb and adjective- frequently as a buzzword in entrepreneurial circles. Last year, our DOM leadership assigned two vice chairs of “Innovation and Commercialization.” We(...)
In the era of patient-centered care, a tremendous amount of time and energy is expended in understanding the experience, perspective and needs of our patients. Understanding the patient perspective is critical to providing the excellent care in which we as a department always aspire. Meeting the needs of our patients in the hospital or in(...)
The December 2015 issue of PLOS Medicine featured a policy forum entitled "Diversity in Clinical and Biomedical Research: A Promise Yet to Be Fulfilled." This provocative article reminds us that health disparities persist across race/ethnicity for the majority of Healthy People 2010 health indicators and that most physicians and scientists are informed by research extrapolated from(...)
In order to care for a more racially diverse U.S. population, it is critical to have a physician workforce that reflects that diversity. In the December 1 issues of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a Medical News and Perspectives piece highlights the decline in the number of black males enrolling in medical school in(...)
The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) is the only national, standardized survey assessing patients’ experience with US hospitals. It contains 32 questions covering doctor communication, nurse communication, cleanliness, pain management and other domains. A random 50 percent of all patients discharged from Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center(...)
We can be proud of the high demand for our inpatient beds in the Department of Medicine, but the demand creates challenges. Patients accepted from other institutions via the Hopkins Access Line (HAL) and patients in our ED are often vying for the same beds. We recently implemented a HAL triage protocol to create a(...)
Quality improvement strategies can target several areas—health systems (case management, team changes, electronic patient registry, facilitated relay of information to clinicians, continuous QI), health-care providers (audit and feedback, clinician education, clinician reminders, financial incentives) or patients (patient education, promotion of self-management, reminder systems). A recent systematic review and meta-analysis published in Diabetes Care in 2013(...)