Transforming The Doctors Office

From the parking lot to the exam room, doctors can improve the physical surroundings for their patients, yet often they do not. Given the numerous and varied duties doctors must perform, it may fall to the design profession to implement changes, many based on research, to improve healthcare experiences. From location and layout to furnishings and positive distractions, this book provides evidence-based information about the physical environment to help doctors and those who design medical workspaces improve the experience of health care. Along with its research base, a special aspect of this book is the integration of relevant historical material about the office practice of physicians at the beginning of the twentieth century. Many of their design solutions are viable today. In addition to improving the physical design of healthcare facilities, author Ann Sloan Devlin is the granddaughter, daughter, and niece of physicians, as well as the granddaughter and daughter of nurses. She worked in a hospital during college, and has visited a good many practitioners’ offices in medical office buildings and ambulatory care settings. This book addresses an overlooked location of care: the doctor’s office suite.

From the parking lot to the exam room, doctors can improve the physical surroundings for their patients, yet often they do not. Given the numerous and varied duties doctors must perform, it may fall to the design profession to implement changes, many based on research, to improve healthcare experiences. From location and layout to furnishings and positive distractions, this book provides evidence-based information about the physical environment to help doctors and those who design medical workspaces improve the experience of health care. Along with its research base, a special aspect of this book is the integration of relevant historical material about the office practice of physicians at the beginning of the twentieth century. Many of their design solutions are viable today. In addition to improving the physical design of healthcare facilities, author Ann Sloan Devlin is the granddaughter, daughter, and niece of physicians, as well as the granddaughter and daughter of nurses. She worked in a hospital during college, and has visited a good many practitioners' offices in medical office buildings and ambulatory care settings. This book addresses an overlooked location of care: the doctor's office suite.

From the parking lot to the exam room, doctors can improve the physical surroundings for their patients, yet often they do not. Given the numerous and varied duties doctors must perform, it may fall to the design profession to implement changes, many based on research, to improve healthcare experiences. From location and layout to furnishings and positive distractions, this book provides evidence-based information about the physical environment to help doctors and those who design medical workspaces improve the experience of health care. Along with its research base, a special aspect of this book is the integration of relevant historical material about the office practice of physicians at the beginning of the twentieth century. Many of their design solutions are viable today. In addition to improving the physical design of healthcare facilities, author Ann Sloan Devlin is the granddaughter, daughter, and niece of physicians, as well as the granddaughter and daughter of nurses. She worked in a hospital during college, and has visited a good many practitioners’ offices in medical office buildings and ambulatory care settings. This book addresses an overlooked location of care: the doctor’s office suite.

How patients heal doctors In Patients and Doctors, physicians from around the world share stories of the patients they'll never forget, patients who have changed the way they practice medicine. Their thoughtful reflections on a variety of themes--from suffering to humor to death--help us to understand the experience of doctoring, in all its ordinary and extraordinary aspects. In settings as diverse as Slovenia and Sweden, Cambodia and New Jersey, we learn what makes the healer feel graced with insight or scarred with misadventure. In Washington State, we anguish with patient and doctor alike when a young resident removes a screw from a little boy's foot; on the Israeli-Jordanian border, a woman goes into labor just as the air-raid sirens signal the beginning of the Gulf War. These compelling accounts remind us what is at stake in doctoring, reinforcing the value of stories in the teaching and practice of medicine: to calm, to validate, and to illuminate the human experience. "These stories illustrate humane physicians at their best."--Sharon Kaufman, author of The Healer's Tale

In 1996, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its report Telemedicine: A Guide to Assessing Telecommunications for Health Care. In that report, the IOM Committee on Evaluating Clinical Applications of Telemedicine found telemedicine is similar in most respects to other technologies for which better evidence of effectiveness is also being demanded. Telemedicine, however, has some special characteristics-shared with information technologies generally-that warrant particular notice from evaluators and decision makers. Since that time, attention to telehealth has continued to grow in both the public and private sectors. Peer-reviewed journals and professional societies are devoted to telehealth, the federal government provides grant funding to promote the use of telehealth, and the private technology industry continues to develop new applications for telehealth. However, barriers remain to the use of telehealth modalities, including issues related to reimbursement, licensure, workforce, and costs. Also, some areas of telehealth have developed a stronger evidence base than others. The Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) sponsored the IOM in holding a workshop in Washington, DC, on August 8-9 2012, to examine how the use of telehealth technology can fit into the U.S. health care system. HRSA asked the IOM to focus on the potential for telehealth to serve geographically isolated individuals and extend the reach of scarce resources while also emphasizing the quality and value in the delivery of health care services. This workshop summary discusses the evolution of telehealth since 1996, including the increasing role of the private sector, policies that have promoted or delayed the use of telehealth, and consumer acceptance of telehealth. The Role of Telehealth in an Evolving Health Care Environment: Workshop Summary discusses the current evidence base for telehealth, including available data and gaps in data; discuss how technological developments, including mobile telehealth, electronic intensive care units, remote monitoring, social networking, and wearable devices, in conjunction with the push for electronic health records, is changing the delivery of health care in rural and urban environments. This report also summarizes actions that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can undertake to further the use of telehealth to improve health care outcomes while controlling costs in the current health care environment.

For decades, the manufacturing industry has employed the Toyota Production System the most powerful production method in the world to reduce waste, improve quality, reduce defects and increase worker productivity. In 2001, Virginia Mason Medical Center, an integrated healthcare delivery system in Seattle, Washington set out to achieve its compe

Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History, this is a landmark history of how the entire American health care system of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs has evolved over the last two centuries. "The definitive social history of the medical profession in America....A monumental achievement."—H. Jack Geiger, M.D., New York Times Book Review

"Revolutionary Doctors gives readers a first-hand account of Venezuela's innovative and inspiring program of community healthcare, designed to serve--and largely carried out by--the poor themselves. Drawing on long-term participant observations as well as in-depth research, Brouwer tells the story of Venezuela's Integral Community Medicine program, in which doctor-teachers move into the countryside and poor urban areas to recruit and train doctors from among peasants and workers. Such programs were first developed in Cuba, and Cuban medical personnel play a key role in Venezuela today as advisors and organizers. This internationalist model has been a great success--Cuba is a world leader in medicine and medical training--and Brouwer shows how the Venezuelans are now, with the aid of their Cuban counterparts, following suit. But this program is not without its challenges. It has faced much hostility from traditional Venezuelan doctors as well as all the forces antagonistic to the Venezuelan and Cuban revolutions. Despite the obstacles it describes, Revolutionary Doctors demonstrates how a society committed to the well-being of its poorest people can actually put that commitment into practice, by delivering essential healthcare through the direct empowerment of the people it aims to serve"--Provided by publisher.

This book is an implementation manual for lean tools and principles in a healthcare environment. Lean is a growth strategy, a survival strategy, and an improvement strategy. The goal of lean is, first and foremost, to provide value to the patient/customer, and in so doing eliminate the delays, overcrowding, and frustration associated with the existing care delivery system. Lean creates a better working environment where what is supposed to happen does happen. On time, every time. It allows clinicians to spend more of their time caring for patients and improves the quality of care these patients receive. A lean organization values its employees and encourages their involvement in organizational initiatives which, in turn, sustains hospital-wide quality improvements. The opportunities for lean in healthcare are limitless. This is not a book to be read and forgotten, nor is it meant to sit on a book shelf as another addition to an impressive but underutilized collection of how-to books. As the name implies, it is a guide; a companion to be referenced again and again as the organization moves forward with its lean transformation.

According to Transforming Health Care Scheduling and Access, long waits for treatment are a function of the disjointed manner in which most health systems have evolved to accommodate the needs and the desires of doctors and administrators, rather than those of patients. The result is a health care system that deploys its most valuable resource-highly trained personnel-inefficiently, leading to an unnecessary imbalance between the demand for appointments and the supply of open appointments. This study makes the case that by using the techniques of systems engineering, new approaches to management, and increased patient and family involvement, the current health care system can move forward to one with greater focus on the preferences of patients to provide convenient, efficient, and excellent health care without the need for costly investment. Transforming Health Care Scheduling and Access identifies best practices for making significant improvements in access and system-level change. This report makes recommendations for principles and practices to improve access by promoting efficient scheduling. This study will be a valuable resource for practitioners to progress toward a more patient-focused "How can we help you today?" culture.