Deep Needle Procedures: Abstract, Interview and Article
Promoting patient safety and increasing health care quality have dominated the health care landscape during the last 15 years. Health care regulators and payers are now tying patient safety outcomes and best practices to hospital reimbursement. Many health care leaders are searching for new technologies that not only make health care for patients safer but also reduce overall health care costs. New advances in ultrasonography have made this technology available to health care providers at the patient's bedside. …
Global Health: Kiwi Doctors use ultrasound to help save boy in rural Indonesia
Returning to try and save Thomas: A 5 year old boy in the final stages of heart failure in Indonesia. …
Improving Safety and Quality with Best Practices: Focus on Central Venous Access
2014-05-15T04:00:00Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare Diku Mandavia, MD, FACEP, FRCPC, Chief Medical Officer at Sonosite, and clinical associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Southern California …
Our Journey to Zero Patient Harm
Group Practice JournalMichael Shabot, M.D. FACS, FCCM, FACMI, is chief medical officer, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Houston and Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas School of Biomedical Informatics and the University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston.
Michael Warneke, M.D. is medical director of quality, Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital. …
Ultrasound Guidance at the Point of Care
March 21, 2011Executive InsightBy Diku Mandavia, MD, FACEP, FRCPC …
A Proposed Payment Differential Policy that Negatively Impacts Hospitals and Potentially Patient Care
2014-04-23T04:00:00Healthcare Financial Management Association BlogPaul R. Sierzenski, MDRead article …
CT Dose in Children
2014-03-04T05:00:00Yahoo! Health, Day in HealthBy Lisa Collier CoolHighly regarded healthcare journalist Lisa Collier Cool covers the risks of sending children straight to CT for scans to investigate potential appendicitis. She points out that ionizing radiation from CT poses cancer threats to children and that ultrasound is a viable alternative and could be the first line of imaging for children for certain diagnostic investigations.Read article …
Emergency Ultrasound at the Bedside: Not Just FAST A Cost-Effective Technology to Reduce Medical Errors and Improve Safety
Dr. Bahner underscores that since the 1980s, emergency ultrasound performed by emergency physicians at the point of care has been recognized as a valuable technology to improve the department. Employing ultrasound at the bedside, he asserts, can reduce medical errors, provide more efficient real-time diagnosis, and in certain clinical scenarios, supplement or replace more expensive imaging modalities such as CT and reduce patient exposure to ionizing radiation. This article details how ultrasound can improve procedural success and safety such as invasive procedures like nerve blocks and central venous catheter placement, prevent costly errors and discussed the future of emergency ultrasound which has grown since the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) published its first specialty-specific ultrasound guidelines. …
Flip The Funnel For Increased Physician Efficiency and Improved Patient Satisfaction
The emerging healthcare environment requires expanded patient access while minimizing the cost of care. This is of particular importance for accountable care organizations that are assuming significant risk and must develop more innovative ways to deliver care to drive better outcomes and wring out inefficiencies. Our practice has experienced this struggle on a daily basis as patients, who needed a surgical consult, were frustrated with limited access. Our clinical schedule was filled with non-surgical candidates. This created a paradox where the most specialized health system resources (e.g., surgeon and MRI) were being allocated to a continuum of care that did not result in better care or outcomes, while also increasing physician and patient frustration. The long-standing dilemma was that the wrong patient was often in the wrong clinic leading to an inefficient and circuitous path for the delivery of appropriate care. When evaluating our practice it was clear that we could improve our allocation of available resources with the outcome being happy patients and happy physicians within a healthcare system that was delivering high quality, low cost, appropriate care.
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Imaging Economics
2011-04-15T04:00:00True ValueDavid B. Case, MD, clinical associate professor of medicine at Cornell University Weill College of Medicine in New York
John E. Postley, MD, FACP, assistant clinical professor of medicine at Columbia University. …
Pathways That Deliver Increased Physician Efficiency And Improved Patient Satisfaction
The authors walk through the rationale, steps taken and results from a re-engineered clinical shoulder injury pathway program focused on rotator cuff tears. By using the appropriately skilled provider at the right time and through first line use of ultrasound instead of MRI, the program lead to the clinic being able to serve more patients by improving physician efficiency. The result was exceptional economic and clinical value: the program ultimately provided a 40% decrease in MRIs and a 10% decrease in surgeries. Current reimbursement rates suggest a 75% savings for each patient that receives an ultrasound compared to MRI, and a 90% cost savings for every patient that responds to the physical therapy course of treatment and avoids surgery. …
Ultrasound Needle Guidance in Rheumatology: Advances, Applications and Clinical Pearls
This article enumerates the benefits and applications of Musculoskeletal Ultrasound and details procedural guidance for join and soft tissue injections and aspirations. Dr. Goyal also explains that ultrasound technology has been shown to be 6.5 times more sensitive than x-rays for early, accurate diagnosis of small bone erosions in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. He argues that point of care US can significantly reduce medical errors and offer efficient real-time diagnosis. US can replace or supplement more expensive imaging technologies such as CT in appropriate clinical scenarios. …
Inside the Beltway: The 114th Congress and Healthcare Policy
2015-03-05T08:00:00Inside the Beltway: The 114th Congress and Healthcare PolicyJill RathbunJill Rathbun of Galileo Consulting breaks down the new Congress and what they are facing in the first few weeks of the year. We anticipate, as usual, healthcare issues and policy to be at the front of the Federal agenda. Sonosite will run the series for our customers to stay informed on what is discussed and coming as well as our work in this area.Read article …
The health care industry is increasingly facing payment pressures, especially from the shift to value-based medicine - high-quality care that is also cost effective.
The health care industry is increasingly facing payment pressures, especially from the shift to value-based medicine - high-quality care that is also cost effective.
In this Q&A article for DOTmed News, Jill Rathbun, Managing Partner at Galileo Consulting Group, in Arlington, VA, discusses the ever changing and complex topic of Medicare Payment Policy and what all health care executives need to be aware of in the coming months. An expert in health care policy and reimbursement, Ms. Rathbun explains and walks hospital executives through Medicare FY 2015 payment programs including Value Based Purchasing and Hospital Acquired Conditions. She also discusses how these penalties may be alleviated by introducing ultrasound into procedures to assist in reducing complications, increasing patient safety and increasing quality of care. …
Diagnostic Shoulder Ultrasound: The Results Are In
In this article for Becker's Orthopedic Review, Dr. Don A. Buford explains both the clinical evidence and benefits for the use of diagnostic ultrasound for shoulder evaluation. In particular, evidence for the use of ultrasound as the first imaging study in cases of suspected rotator cuff tear. Dr. Buford, an orthopedic surgeon, also covers the benefits of ultrasound to patients, his clinical practice and the costs to the healthcare system. As the healthcare system moves toward both Appropriate Use Criteria for imaging and lower costs, this article explains why it is time to implement such practices. …
Why the ultrasound-guided approach to central vein catheterization is replacing the landmark method.
2014-05-15T04:00:00Safe and ultrasoundBy Nicole GraySince 1900, life expectancy has increased from less than 50 years to more than 80, thanks in part to remarkable improvements in medicine and healthcare delivery. Nonetheless, as renowned surgeon Atul Gawande once wrote, “We look for science to be an orderly field of knowledge and procedure, but it is not. It is an imperfect science, an enterprise of constantly changing knowledge, fallible individuals and, at the same time, lives on the line.” …
Welcome to the CMO Corner
As an emergency physician, I have taken care of thousands of patients who have benefitted from bedside ultrasound and I consider it to be an indispensible tool.
Many across the medical profession share the same view. In fact, the value of ultrasound is of such importance that the sheer volume of published information is overwhelming.
That’s why we’ve created CMO Corner. …
Improving Care while Reducing Costs in Health Care
Would you let your family fly in an airplane at night if the pilot didn’t have radar? I certainly wouldn’t. That pilot would be flying blind. It’s the same for ultrasound. When a physician performs an invasive procure without ultrasound guidance, it’s akin to a flying blind. …
Training Standards for Critical Care Ultrasonography
Ultrasound within critical care is growing rapidly and has a large role for multiple diagnostic applications and for guidance of invasive procedures. A recent international roundtable, composed of 29 experts from five continents, just published recommendations on the need for developing training standards for intensive care medical students. Twelve Critical Care societies from around the world have endorsed the framework. …