Page 43 - issue
P. 43
Doctors 39
someone else’s. “If you have 10 patients you have to do that
for, that’s two hours worth of work in order to get the infor-
mation that a simple fax or mailed record could have provid-
ed.”
According to Dr. Cooper, “The EMRs are not necessarily
helping patients.” Although they are meant to facilitate the
transfer of knowledge about your treatment and condition
from one health care professional to another and from one
shift to another, “They not easy to read through. There’s a lot
of redundant information, even false or inappropriate infor-
mation, and it has not been the panacea that everyone said
it would be. It’s a data grab for insurance companies and the
government to get a lot of information, but it hasn’t really
helped the patients.”
Dr. Cooper said community doctors recently had a meet-
ing with Sinai administration to discuss how the hospitalists
at Sinai were not very communicative with the private doc-
tors, who had problems getting the information they needed
once a patient was discharged. (He feels this problem exists
in other hospitals as well.) Dr. Cooper reports that Sinai’s
administration is working on this problem. He thinks that it
actually has improved in the past two or three weeks. They
are also trying to come up with a way to reimburse doctors
for seeing a patient within a couple of days of his release
from hospital, so that the doctors can get themselves back in
the loop.
Specialty Care Is Also Different
From what Mrs. Meyer and Mrs. T wrote, it seems that the U.S.
hospitalist system might be able to learn from what goes on
in Europe, where, as they wrote, the hospital doctors regular-
ly updated the GPs. We apparently do not yet have a good
infrastructure for that. As Dr. Cooper told me, at this point,
even if and when a hospital doctor contacts him to discuss a
patient, it takes valuable time out of his tremendously busy
day. With patients in the waiting room and things going on
in the office, such as phone calls with other doctors or with
pharmacies, “It’s not so simple to be ready on the spot.
Having better contact with his patients’ hospitalists during
the day may be the right thing to do, but it is currently not
the realistic thing to do.”
According to Dr. Land,* a specialist I spoke with, “On
paper, the hospitalist system is excellent. However, there is a
lack of empathy on the part of hospital doctors, who do not
know the patients well and often cannot relate to them cul-
turally.”
He says even specialists with privileges (who are allowed to
manage their hospitalized patients’ care) are finding it more
difficult to admit patients under their own name and are
pushed to admit patients to the care of a hospitalist. “The
hospital always tries to get me to admit my patients to a hos-
pitalist. They try as much as possible to push outside special-
ists away. It’s not that they can refuse you, but they
u 410 358 8509 u
someone else’s. “If you have 10 patients you have to do that
for, that’s two hours worth of work in order to get the infor-
mation that a simple fax or mailed record could have provid-
ed.”
According to Dr. Cooper, “The EMRs are not necessarily
helping patients.” Although they are meant to facilitate the
transfer of knowledge about your treatment and condition
from one health care professional to another and from one
shift to another, “They not easy to read through. There’s a lot
of redundant information, even false or inappropriate infor-
mation, and it has not been the panacea that everyone said
it would be. It’s a data grab for insurance companies and the
government to get a lot of information, but it hasn’t really
helped the patients.”
Dr. Cooper said community doctors recently had a meet-
ing with Sinai administration to discuss how the hospitalists
at Sinai were not very communicative with the private doc-
tors, who had problems getting the information they needed
once a patient was discharged. (He feels this problem exists
in other hospitals as well.) Dr. Cooper reports that Sinai’s
administration is working on this problem. He thinks that it
actually has improved in the past two or three weeks. They
are also trying to come up with a way to reimburse doctors
for seeing a patient within a couple of days of his release
from hospital, so that the doctors can get themselves back in
the loop.
Specialty Care Is Also Different
From what Mrs. Meyer and Mrs. T wrote, it seems that the U.S.
hospitalist system might be able to learn from what goes on
in Europe, where, as they wrote, the hospital doctors regular-
ly updated the GPs. We apparently do not yet have a good
infrastructure for that. As Dr. Cooper told me, at this point,
even if and when a hospital doctor contacts him to discuss a
patient, it takes valuable time out of his tremendously busy
day. With patients in the waiting room and things going on
in the office, such as phone calls with other doctors or with
pharmacies, “It’s not so simple to be ready on the spot.
Having better contact with his patients’ hospitalists during
the day may be the right thing to do, but it is currently not
the realistic thing to do.”
According to Dr. Land,* a specialist I spoke with, “On
paper, the hospitalist system is excellent. However, there is a
lack of empathy on the part of hospital doctors, who do not
know the patients well and often cannot relate to them cul-
turally.”
He says even specialists with privileges (who are allowed to
manage their hospitalized patients’ care) are finding it more
difficult to admit patients under their own name and are
pushed to admit patients to the care of a hospitalist. “The
hospital always tries to get me to admit my patients to a hos-
pitalist. They try as much as possible to push outside special-
ists away. It’s not that they can refuse you, but they
u 410 358 8509 u
