Improve Outcomes in Private Medical Practice

It’s all about “outcomes” these days. I’m referring to all the initiatives to measure and compare the clinical care we provide against the results. Much of medicine can be measured with datapoints, but because medicine is as much an art as a science, in my opinion, these new initiatives probably miss the benefits obtained with the “soft” stuff. What I mean is that these initiatives might show that one doctor or practice has better or worse results than others, but they don’t usually show why. Can you measure the fact that one physician is an excellent communicator and educator of his patients compared to other physicians, or one surgeon is more skillful, quicker and more accurate with a procedure than another competent surgeon doing the same procedure? Their patients do “better” based on these outcomes measurements, but the explanation for the better results is not specifically explained. You’re going to be asked to track what you do, which adds time and tasks to your day and your staff’s workload, but you may not benefit. I’m sure that’s one reason electronic medical record systems are being championed by the government and managed care companies. Doctors can be tracked and graded more easily. Hopefully the patients will ultimately get a benefit too, which is a benefit they’ll share with their doctor.

Just because it’s difficult to measure something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try because the goal is to always improve and to always provide better and better care. Running a medical practice well requires close attention to details, and monitoring details that ultimately affect patient outcomes directly benefits your practice. That’s why it’s so important to establish practical and reproducible policies, procedures and protocols based on logical goals, and rechecking the results so that appropriate modifications can be made in your practice. Every practice is a little (or a lot) different, with different physician personalities and practice styles, and different patient populations so what works in Boston may not work in Eureka.

For doctors to buy into all these new initiatives there’s going to have to be some tangible benefit for them. Less hours, better payments, more efficient use of their time. We’ll be asked to buy the equipment and pay the staff to input the data. This investment demands a reward.

Hopefully readers of PrivatePractice.MD will share good practice tips with each other here, so that we can all learn from each other. Medical practice advisors also can show us best practices used by others so we don’t re-invent the wheel constantly. No time for that!