Big Data Helps Hospitals Usher in Cook Book Medicine
Gradually, Dr. Tanios and others cranked up the effort. Last spring, at regular meetings of the hospital’s medical staff, they began sharing lists of doctors whose patients spent on average the most days in the hospital, as well as those who spent the fewest. Doctors were encouraged to learn how to check their own data.
Some doctors had to go through “stages of acceptance,” he says. “First is anger, ‘Why is someone looking at my data?’ Then denial, ‘This is not my data!’ Then acceptance.” In the end, he has seen some doctors’ average patient stays go down after he discusses their results with them, he says.
MemorialCare says that, in general, the doctor-data efforts and other programs have helped reduce the average stay for adult patients to four days in 2012 from 4.2 days in 2011. MemorialCare also says that, between 2011 and 2012, it trimmed the average cost per admitted adult patient by $280, saving $13.8 million. It says it has improved on indicators of quality including patient readmissions, mortality and complications. (WSJ)
“The last frontier is the physicians…A few years ago, he ordered up a list of the 20 physicians practicing at Monmouth who were costing the most money and sat down with each to go over their data. Several trimmed services like repeat lab tests and daily X-rays, he says, and those 20 are no longer among the costliest.”
Another example of it working
“Asked to devise ways to introduce the Crimson system to physicians who work in MemorialCare hospitals, several doctors created and starred in a video. One skit, “Dr. McClueless Gets Fired,” focuses on a doctor who ignores the Crimson data and loses his contract with an insurer. Meantime, “Dr. Goodjob” wins praise for trimming unnecessary daily X-rays and reducing some patients’ hospital stays.”
It seems like middle school, but for doctors
But the school worked, look at the results:
“MemorialCare also says that, between 2011 and 2012, it trimmed the average cost per admitted adult patient by $280, saving $13.8 million. It says it has improved on indicators of quality including patient readmission, mortality and complications.”
Good find.
Great statistic.
Knowledge of results in the medical field allows doctors to make reforms to their practice to provide better medical care.
True, but this needs to be relayed somehow to the patient as well.
How do we know that reducing the hospital stay benefited patients?
Heck, the NHS hospital trusts in Britain have found all kinds of ways to reduce costs. They don’t feed patients incapable of feeding themselves, they cancel surgery for patients who need it, and they cut clinical staff.
After all, every little bit helps keep those health care costs down.
Too bad about the excess deaths.
and they laughed at the notion of death panels…
This anecdote is about tracking physician performance and reducing unnecessary care. What about other possibilities, where “Dr. McClueless Gets Fired,” because he/she in not ordering enough tests, upcoding or admitting marginal patients who could have gone home but also could have been convinced they needed admitted?
What’s up, this weekend is pleasant in support of me, because this occasion i am reading this great educational post here at my home.
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