The Medical Professionalism Blog
Category Archives: Medical Professionalism in Practice
Why Professionalism Matters: A Patient’s Point of View
As an employee of the ABIM Foundation, I’ve batted around the phrase “medical professionalism” for several years but it didn’t really hit home for me until I encountered it – and the lack thereof – as a patient. Over the past six months, I’ve logged a few miles in the frequent patient program. I underwent [...]
Where Do the Savings Go When Waste is Removed?
Recently, I spoke on a panel at a NEHI (New England Health Institute) Roundtable Discussion in Washington, DC on bending the cost curve. NEHI had released a list of actions that could reduce costs by more than $700 million and improve quality of care. Their recommendations included reducing medication errors, reducing antibiotic use, improving patient [...]
There’s More To It Than Just Money
I highly recommend reading a recent report sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute (the employer of the authors) by Robert Berenson and Elizabeth Docteur entitled Doing Better by Doing Less; Approaches to Tackle Overuse of Services. It is an excellent analysis of approaches that address the issue of inappropriate and [...]
Physicians and Residents Climbing the Mt. Everest of Medical Waste
The ABIM Foundation’s “Putting the Charter into Practice” grant program is focused on advancing stewardship in health care delivery systems. In 2011, we awarded five grants of $20,000 each, and we’ve been excited to see the tremendous return on this investment.
Recommended Reading: January 11 – 18
The articles featured in this week’s Recommended Reading focus on identifying and addressing unprofessional behavior among physicians: Researchers recently presented vignettes of unprofessional online behavior to state medical boards to assess the likelihood that these behaviors would result in a state board investigation. Four of the vignettes had a high rate of consensus that the [...]
Choosing Wisely: What’s Next?
Several professional organizations, regional collaboratives and health systems/hospitals are asking how they should approach the implementation of the Choosing Wisely® campaign recommendations.
Physician Skepticism About Industry-Funded Clinical Trials
In a recent New England Journal of Medicine article “A randomized study of how physicians interpret research funding disclosures” Dr. Kesselheim and colleagues found that internists harbor mistrust of industry-funded clinical trials. In his accompanying editorial, Dr. Jeffrey Drazen states that “how trials influence practice should be based on the quality of the information conveyed [...]
Acts of Professionalism: Opposition to Self-Referrals by Specialty Societies
In September, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report titled Higher Use of Advanced Imaging Services by Providers Who Self-Refer Costing Medicare Millions. The report concluded that: From 2004 through 2010, the number of self-referred and non-self-referred advanced imaging services—magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) services—both increased, with the larger increase among [...]
The Language of Choosing Wisely
In my last post about the 2012 ABIM Foundation Forum, I wrote about physician and patient competencies needed in the 21st century to achieve the triple aim (improving the patient experience, improved health of populations, and reduced per capita cost of health care). I was inspired by the thoughtful conversations that took place at the [...]
Reflections on the ABIM Foundation Professionalism Article Prize
This year, the ABIM Foundation awarded the second annual Professionalism Article Prizes. Throughout 2011, Foundation staff tracked the medical professionalism literature, which was comprised of over 100 articles. We appreciate the work of the winning authors, along with all the authors who published articles on professionalism this year. The Professionalism Article Prize provides needed recognition [...]
Recent Comments