Now is the time to follow-up on those good intentions of yours to make sure your swine flu/pandemic illness policy is all that is should be.  Things are calming down a bit (although US numbers are rising, cases are mild) and as we might have a bit of calm before the next storm, it is the ideal time to give yourself a policy and training check-up while the topic is fresh.

1. Do you have a policy for dealing with a community illness that is more than your typical flu season?
2. Does your policy include detailed information that most anyone in your organization could follow if you were not able to give directions?
3. Do you know what the local hospitals’ plans and policies are?
4. Have you clarified roles for each of your clinical and administrative staff and provided them with detailed information on their responsibilities during a community illness?
5. Do you understand what your practice is required to do to report information to local, state and national authorities?
6. Have you located resources for or designed patient education materials appropriate for your population?
7. Have you integrated community illness information into your new employee orientation and your annual staff training materials?

If you answered “no” or “maybe” to any of the questions above, here are some resource links to help you
continue reading "More Practice Management Resources to Help You Get Your Community Illness Plan in Place"

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If you are reading this on the Manage My Practice website, you can see that I added a widget to my sidebar that gives you the latest info from HHS.  It’s the green box on the right under my VisualCV box.  The HHS and the CDC have developed lots of widgets that you can place on your practice website to give your patients the latest information on the swine flu.  You can get a widget for your practice website from HHS here or from CDC here. These sites also provide podcasts and other resources that you can use to develop your practice protocols and education materials for staff and patients globally for a pandemic illness, or specifically for the A(H1N1) swine influenza illness.

This article will provide resources for three areas:

1. Protocol for your practice for potential pandemic illness (swine flu or other)
2. Plan to provide information to your patients about swine flu
3. Plan for your practice to function during the swine flu or a pandemic illness episode

The good news about the swine flu is
continue reading "Pandemic Possibilities: Do You Have a Plan for Your Patients and Your Employees?"

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The Medical Home, also called the Patient-Centered Medical Home, and the Personal Medical Home, is a movement to solve the problem of fragmented care (one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing) by having a primary care physician or practitioner act as the center of all care information for the patient.   Fragmented care is dangerous (lack of coordination of care causes mistakes and mistreatments), costly (repetition of diagnostic tests and regimens), and wasteful of healthcare resources.  The Medical Home plan goals are to provide care for all individuals, improve care, and decrease healthcare costs.

“Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century” was published in 2001 by the Institute of Medicine.  In this landmark book, the patient’s role and responsibility for navigating the healthcare system and acting as the information hub around which the spokes of primary, specialty and tertiary care providers revolve was denounced
continue reading "What is a Medical Home?"

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And, today, from the Medical Group Practice Association (MGMA), encouragement to get signed up with HCNN so as not to miss an important alert this week:

The Health Care Notification Network (HCNN) is scheduled to communicate an important prescribing alert this week. This online alert will be distributed via the HCNN in advance of traditional paper-based alerts to approximately 600,000 physicians, targeting the following specialties:

- Emergency Medicine
- Family Medicine
- General Practice
- Internal Medicine
- Neurology

Unregistered members can enroll to view this alert and other alerts at any time but will continue to receive paper-based alerts until they are registered for the HCNN.

Many medical societies, medical liability carriers, patient advocacy groups, and other health care industry organizations support HCCN  “because it improves patient safety and decreases practice liability.”  At some point in the future, medical liability carriers may offer discounts to their clients who are registered with HCNN.

To register  with HCNN, click here.

To go to the HCNN Frequently Asked Questions, click here.

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When your patients ask what internet sites your doctors recommend for reliable health information, do you have an answer?  Many practices have embedded health information on their websites, or link to sites sponsored by their professional society (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons) or national non-profits (American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association.)  Here’s a great article written by physician Patricia M. Hale, PhD, MD, listing her “top 5 safe web sites containing the best tools and resources for health-related information.”

Dr. Hale introduces her list and notes that:

“ There are many other useful health resources on the web but it is very important to be sure they are run by reputable medical authorities and contain accurate and safe information.”

Her top five are:

1.  Medline Plus
2. Mayo Clinic
   
3. Center for Disease Control (CDC)
   
4. Merck Source
   
5. U.S. Dept. of State Tips for Traveling Abroad

One of the best ways you can be further reassured that the web site you are exploring is safe is to look for the Health on The Net Foundation (HON) seal of approval. HON has strict criteria for approval of health related web sites and checks regularly to be sure their rules are followed.

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BNET just posted a great video on Google Search tips.  I use Google Search a lot, but had no idea how much faster I could search by using some of these ways to customize a search.  You can watch the 7 minute video here, or I’ve collected some of tips below.

1. To match exact words, put the phrase inside of double quotes.  You can also put dashes between each word in a phrase and it will search for the exact words.  (Examples: “”physician compensation models”" or physician-compensation-models)
2. To search for a topic or phrase, but exclude something, use a minus sign before the exclusion.  (Example: physician practice -hospital)
3. To tell the search engine not to correct your spelling, put a plus sign in front of your search.  (Example: +HIPPA)
4. Type information straight into the browser, for instance: flight numbers, package tracking numbers, vehicle identification numbers (VINs), area codes, UPC codes, and patent numbers!
5. To get a definition enter “define: and the word”.  (Example: define:physiatry)
6. Fill in the blank.  Enter a sentence and use the * symbol for the information wanted.  (Example: There are * family practice physicians in the United States.)
7. Use the search box as a calculator. (Try it!)
8. Use the search box to make a currency conversion.
9. Type in a movie and your zip code to see where the movie is playing and what times it is playing.

And for those readers who want to take Google to the next step, here’s the way to customize your Google: How to search Google Wiki

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