William Martinez, MD, MS and Thomas H. Gallagher, MD
Running away from the problems and inefficiencies of our current health care system and into the comforts of concierge medicine does little to advance health and well-being for the vast majority of people.
The belief persists that patient satisfaction surveys are more responsive to friendliness and expensive facilities than clinician interaction, but there is evidence to the contrary.
The use of coded patient data for reimbursement purposes can tempt clinicians to exaggerate the severity of the patient's condition, skewing the accuracy of the data and interfering with clinical decision support and research.
When a patient requests an unfamiliar treatment, the physician should not hesitate to research it before giving a categorical reply about its safety or efficacy.
Rachel O. Reid, MD, MS and Ateev Mehrotra, MD, MPH
An effective policy regarding retail clinics in a primary care practice should address patients' need for timely and convenient acute care and build capacity for enhanced access to acute care within the primary care clinic itself.
Assigning community based on race suggests that phenotype reveals something consistent about biology that is equal in standing to factors like weight, dietary habits, smoking history, and whether or not you had rheumatic fever as a child.
Use of decision-support systems can improve quality of patient care in residency training programs if the resident physician users participate in the development and routine revision of those systems.