tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32053362.post2674766494114620237..comments2024-03-26T00:25:34.026-04:00Comments on Not Running a Hospital: Two peas in a podPaul Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17065446378970179507noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32053362.post-83748543711186634642010-05-24T05:07:03.802-04:002010-05-24T05:07:03.802-04:00Engineer,
The affiliation does not and cannot req...Engineer,<br /><br />The affiliation does not and cannot require referrals to BIDMC.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32053362.post-68996890527080133662010-05-23T23:19:52.385-04:002010-05-23T23:19:52.385-04:00Anon 1:54;
I confess my initial thoughts were sim...Anon 1:54;<br /><br />I confess my initial thoughts were similar to your own. However, I know several people, many being physicians, who won't go anywhere but the Mayo Clinic for treatment, and I live about 700 miles from Minnesota. Another friend went to the Cleveland Clinic for his mitral valve repair despite the presence of at least 5 local centers with (lesser) MVR experience. The Clinic had an impressive system for returning the patient to and communicating with his local physicians.<br /><br />Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the community hospital can access Anderson's undisputed expertise and not have its patients stolen. In this age of digital transmission of images and other data, there is no reason tertiary care/advice can't be administered from afar - and it might generate true price competition, which is well known to be needed in Boston.<br /><br />Maybe someone should ask the hospital why they picked Anderson...<br /><br />nonlocal MDAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32053362.post-32268542474437996852010-05-23T21:03:39.168-04:002010-05-23T21:03:39.168-04:00What does an affiliation such as Anna Jaques with ...What does an affiliation such as Anna Jaques with BIDMC mean with respect to referrals for specialty care. For example, Mass General and Brigham & Women's are rated more highly in the US News rankings for heart and heart surgery. (For purposes of this discussion only I shall assume that those rankings are valid indicators of probability of successful outcomes.)<br /><br />If a cadiovascular patient needed a semi-urgnet referral, would the Anna Jaques cardio physician refer to BIDMC, and what influence would the patient have in that decision. If the patient said "I want to go to Brigham and Women's", how would that affect his relationship to his Anna Jaques cardio physician and would the Brigham cardio department be as receptive to the referral as would the cardio department at BIDMC?Engineer on Medicarenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32053362.post-43775730110512492982010-05-23T13:54:33.084-04:002010-05-23T13:54:33.084-04:00The MD Anderson deal makes no sense to me. It is a...The MD Anderson deal makes no sense to me. It is a bizarre artifact of that hospital competing with a Dana Farber-allied hospital, and has nothing to do with how to sensibly arrange specialty care. In coverage of the deal the Globe suggests that some patients may end up going to Houston for care. That is flat-out nuts if it is more than a very few with very rare conditions (i.e., the kind of folks who might be sent from Dana Farber to MD Anderson just because of a particular expertise that exists at MD Anderson that doesn't at DFCI), and it can't be good for patients, families, care coordination, inpatient to outpatient transitions, etc. There is no reason that oncologists couldn't make alliances closer to home. And those folks needing special care could be sent to any number of tertiary care centers with oncology expertise in Massachusetts or Rhode Island, or even Connecticut or New Hampshire if you really want to go far afield, or Sloan Kettering for that matter--no reason except healthcare marketplace jockeying that has little promise of significantly improving patient care compared to what actual rational allocation of healthcare resources might accomplish.<br /><br />(This is not a comment on the Anna Jaques deal which seems totally reasonable.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32053362.post-70508717163813374322010-05-23T10:01:43.850-04:002010-05-23T10:01:43.850-04:00A benefit to patients would be transparency in rep...A benefit to patients would be transparency in reporting of shared patients and procedures. Tracking metrics systematically and publicly allows testing that such relationships benefit community hospital patient care, not just the financials.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com