jenuesse health

Michael Greco and his mates at Patient Opinion have developed a simple and useful way to collect opinions about medical care from patients and provide a lovely forum for interactions back and forth with the hospital and providers.  The purpose is simple: To enable and enhance issue resolution, relationship restoration, and improvement. An easy-to-use website makes it possible. The folks at Eastern Health in Victoria have had PO in place for some time.  Here are some stories from their health system.  As you can see, things go in both directions in a helpful, direct, and friendly fashion.  In fact, this first story is actually an apology from a patient to the staff. An excerpt: I was upset and not in the mood to talk much nor was I paying attention to what was being said, as a result I presented as being rude. When the descending red misty haze had finally settled, remorse set in. I regret deeply if I had offended this person and caused them to perform their du...

With a plethora of books about the value and importance of storytelling, we might wonder if another could offer any value. Well, the answer is yes, emphatically. Shawn Callahan's about-to-be released book Putting Stories to Work: Mastering Business Storytelling , is a must-have for your actual or digital library.  It is available now on pre-order and will be on the "bookshelves" on March 20. Shawn is the founder of Anecdote , the world’s largest business storytelling company.  His book is engaging and wise, and yes, replete with useful stories. His advise is concise and helpful, and--unsurprisingly--he has a way with words!  Let me provide some excerpts.  First, this teaser: Natural as it is for us to tell stories, as soon as we enter a meeting, begin a presentation or start a formal conversation with a colleague, all our stories disappear. We bring forth our most authoritative voice and opine away, saying things like: ‘There are three key points here...’ and ‘I th...

Regular readers will know that I am no fan of hospital rankings and have been quite critical over the years at the ones at US News and World Report .  But let's give credit to where it is due: Check out this news release . Excerpts: Patients and families who've used our rankings tell us they want more from hospitals. What they want is meaningful transparency. U.S. News will implement two closely related methodology changes this spring that could drive broader transparency. Both will affect only our rankings of Best Hospitals in Cardiology & Heart Surgery. In that specialty, we will award credit to hospitals that publicly release their own performance data via one or both of two clinical registries, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons' (STS) Adult Cardiac Surgery Database and the American College of Cardiology's (ACC) National Cardiovascular Data Registry. In the case of the ACC data, two constituent registries will be considered: CathPCI and ICD. ACC and its participat...

It's been some time since I commented on issues of market dominance in Massachusetts, but a recent story by Bruce Mohl at Commonwealth Magazin e caught my interest. He writes about a petition being supported by a health care union, SEIU, and Steward Health Care that would mandate a flattening of rate disparities among the state's hospitals. The Massachusetts Hospital Association opposes the ballot question.  Mohl notes: All but one of the hospital association’s board members head institutions that would benefit financially from the ballot question, but nevertheless they have formed a united front against it. Their reasons vary. Some are wary of government price regulation; others don’t think a ballot question is the best way to set health care policy. Whatever their motivation, the united front benefits Partners HealthCare, the one association member who would take a big hit if the ballot question becomes law. Mohl notes that under the proposed legislation: Lowell Gener...

You have to be willing to acknowlege your problems before you can remedy them.  If I were to characterize the state of public and private hospital care in the state of Victoria, Australia, I'd have to say that this first step is lacking.  Both the public and private hospital systems and the goverment regulators who oversee them are in a state of denial with regard to the level of harm being caused to the public by inadequate attention to quality and safety deficiencies. The health system as a whole, also, is characterized by an uwillingness to engage patients and families in the appraisal and improvement of care. The question is when and if the body politic and hospital governing bodies and clinical and administrative leaders will overcome their denial of the extent of the problem. On the public side of the hospital system, the Victoria Auditor-General is about to issue an important report on patient safety in Victoria hospitals, described as follows : Clinical incidents in he...

In his wonderful book about the All Blacks, Legacy , James Kerr reminds us that a key to the success of this remarkable rugby team is an unbreakable social contract, "No dickheads." I'm beginning to think that the body politic needs a similar approach.  If we view each country as having an implicit social contract, we can see that its tenets have an ebb and flow--from inclusive to exclusive, from sharing to selfish, and so on.  It appears that we are now heading, in several countries, to the end of the spectrum that is dysfunctional. Martin Flanagan sets forth this thought in his book about Australia, In Sunshine or in Shadow . Although written several years ago, I have found his observations to be apt today in many ways.  A country whose philosophy was based on " mateship " has moved.  He writes: I ask my father-in-law--what does it mean to be Australian? He looks out the window and says, "Giving the bloke beneath you a hand up." This ethic is direct...