05/23/2013
Emergency Rooms: Massive Cost Center, or Crucial Healthcare Gateway?
There is a persistent narrative about emergency rooms. This narrative says that emergency rooms are overly expensive places to receive healthcare, that they are a cost drain on the hospitals they are attached to, and that they are a key driver of rising healthcare costs.
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05/13/2013
The Time is Now for Transitional Care
Right now hospitals around the country are being asked to reckon with some stark realities regarding readmissions. $17 billion a year is spent on readmissions for Medicare patients alone, and 75% of those readmissions are considered to be preventable. Of all Medicare patients who are admitted to a hospital, 18 percent will be readmitted in 30 days and of those, 50 percent will not have seen aprimary care physician in the interim.
05/07/2013
Who Or What Is Forestalling The Death Of Fee For Service Medicine?
With decreasing Medicare payments, rapidly shifting market pressures, and ongoing discussions regarding value and cost in healthcare, by now it should be clear to everyone that fee-for-service is a dying way of delivering care.
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05/02/2013
Instead of Duty-Hour Restrictions, Try Bedside Sign Out
As it turns out, reducing the number of hours that residents are allowed to work without taking a break - from 30 down to 16 - actually makes them more stressed out and depressed, results in more clinical errors, and doesn’t lead to their getting any more sleep than they did before.
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04/25/2013
A Week of Tragedy and Wonders: Boston, Waco, and Times Like This
Think way back to ten days ago.
Kim Jong Un's bizarre anti-US saber rattling: nuke tipped missiles aimed at a Colorado Springs (located squarely in the heart of Texas). On April 15 he promised hellfire to commemorate his grandfather, the patriarch of his dynasty.
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04/22/2013
A Letter from On the Ground with MEP Transition Care
Hagerstown, MD: Photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmd41280/[/caption]
MEP is pleased to release the following letter from the wife of a patient in our Transition Care program. We would like to thank Melissa Farkas, Kathy McKenny, and the entire the Transition Care team for their hard work in making this program a success. We also want to thank Barbara Everly, for sending the letter and giving us permission to release it.
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04/17/2013
Amid Change, Physicians are Faced With a Choice
Amid massive change in our healthcare delivery systems and seismic shifts in many regional markets, physicians are increasingly being faced with a simple choice: be acquired or become employed as part of a large healthcare system, or stay independent while offering a compelling service that hospitals and health systems value.
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04/05/2013
How to Fix a Troubled Emergency Department: Meritus Medical Center
The Emergency Department at Meritus Medical Center in Hagerstown, MD is one of the best in the state. Patients get seen very quickly; the "Left Without Being Seen" rate is less than 1 percent; and both patient satisfaction and provider morale are extremely high. The quality of both the care and the medical providers is outstanding.
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Angelo Falcone, MD
Jesse Irwin, MD
Neil Roy, MD
Vipul Kella, MD
Jeremy Tucker, MD
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