March 2010 - Posts

• Is Don Berwick The One?

  The Blogosphere Rumor Factory is heating up with reports that Don Berwick, the world’s most prominent advocate for healthcare quality and safety, will be the next administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). (Take this with Read More... Posted Fri, Mar 26 2010 9:02 PM by Bob Wachter | 5 Comments Filed under: Quality Improvement, Pay-for-performance, Transparency and Reporting, Efficiency, Patient Safety/Medical Errors, Health Policy, Media/Press Coverage

• Could It Be That (Gasp!) The System Works?

  Heading into the final weekend of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, who could have guessed that in a year that brought us Death Panels, Pickup Trucks, “You Lie”, The Cornhusker Compromise, Bart Stupak (boy, that must have been a tough name to grow up with), and the Read More... Posted Sat, Mar 20 2010 2:08 AM by Bob Wachter | 11 Comments Filed under: Health Policy, Media/Press Coverage

• Verb-alizing

  One of my interns was “running the list” with me last week (giving me a thumbnail update on the plans for each of our inpatients). It was standard stuff until he got to Ms. X, a 80ish-year-old woman admitted with urosepsis who was now ready for discharge. Read More... Posted Thu, Mar 04 2010 3:22 PM by Bob Wachter | 14 Comments Filed under: Hospital Care, Medical Education/Academia, Information Technology, Ambulatory/Primary Care