The Health Care Blog

The Technology Hype Cycle: Why bad things happen to good technologies

By Robert Wachter Fresh on the heels of my recent bar coding epiphany comes another “unintended consequences” article. It turns out that the whipsawing that accompanies the adoption of new technologies is completely foreseeable, the “Why doesn’t this thing work...
May 19, 2008 in Bob Wachter, Technology | Permalink | Comments (1)

Should Patient Satisfaction Scores Be Adjusted for Where Patients Shop?

By Robert Wachter Last week, Medicare added patient satisfaction data to its hospital reporting website. This is progress, but it raises an interesting question: should patient satisfaction scores be case-mix adjusted? The motivation to include patient satisfaction data comes from...
April 15, 2008 in Bob Wachter, Physician Rating | Permalink | Comments (4)

Average Time of Discharge: Why a Hospital is Not a Hilton

By Robert Wachter Do you get as annoyed as I do about being pressured on your “Time of Discharge?” I just received my monthly report, and we’re in The Doghouse again: our average TOD – 3:28 pm – is hours...
March 26, 2008 in Bob Wachter, Consumers, Hospitals | Permalink | Comments (5)

Look at How Safe [Fill in the Blank] Is by Bob Wachter

But is it as simple as that really? Perhaps not. In the commentary that follows, Bob Wachter has a very different take on the airline analogy. Analogies are useful things, true, he argues. But perhaps not as useful as the...
December 29, 2007 in Bob Wachter, Hospitals, Patient Safety | Permalink | Comments (2)

Rating Doctors Like Restaurants, by Bob Wachter

Robert Wachter is widely regarded as a leading figure in the modern patient safety movement. Together with Dr. Lee Goldman, he coined the term "hospitalist" in an influential 1996 essay in The New England Journal of Medicine. His most recent...
December 4, 2007 in Bob Wachter, Health 2.0, Quality, Technology | Permalink | Comments (16)

HOSPITALS: Dennis Quaid's Kids - Are VIPs Safer? By Bob Wachter

Robert Wachter is widely regarded as a leading figure in the modern patient safety movement. Together with Dr. Robert Goldman, he coined the term "hospitalist" in an 1996 essay in The New England Journal of Medicine. His most recent book,...
November 26, 2007 in Bob Wachter, Patient Safety | Permalink | Comments (6)

When is a Medical Error a Crime? by Bob Wachter

Bob Wachter is one of the nation's leading experts on medical safety and one of the pioneers of the hospitalist movement. And now he's descending into the mire of blogging! So we're pleased to cross post one of the more...
November 16, 2007 in Bob Wachter, Hospitals, Patient Safety | Permalink | Comments (16)