March 8, 2010

IN THIS ISSUE

Editor's Column: The Heart Of Darkness Can Enlighten Us
13th Annual Greater Detroit Meet-n-Greet
Medicare Payment Cuts Postponed 31 Days
Physician Leaders Lobby For SGR Repeal
Sander Levin Replaces Rangel As Ways And Means Chair
Haiti Fundraiser Features Dr. McGeorge
DMC Achieves Electronic Milestone
Henry Ford Production System LEAN Training Program To Kick Off

Click Here To Contact Us
 

Editor's Column: The Heart Of Darkness Can Enlighten Us

By JOSEPH WEISS, MD
The February supplement to the journal Health Affairs includes an article by McCord et al: The Quality of Emergency Obstetrical Surgery by Assistant Medical Officers in Tanzanian District Hospitals. In Tanzania, as in other sub-Saharan African nations, the shortage of physicians and nurses drives the creation of non-physician personnel to provide medical services. Assistant Medical Officers are individuals with a secondary-school graduate degree plus three years of medical training, followed six months of further training in surgery and obstetrics. In Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi and Mozambique, assistant medical officers are allowed to perform cesarean sections and other emergency obstetrical surgery.

McCord et al reviewed the records of 14 Tanzanian district hospitals for emergency obstetrical surgeries. Among the 1,134 complicated deliveries and 1,024 major obstetrical operations, the authors found no significant differences between assistant medical officers and medical officers in outcomes or quality of care.

What can this experience in Africa tell us? One conclusion is that more medical care doesn’t mean a need exists for more doctors. An alternative exists to opening up a dozen new medical schools and aiming to train 40,000 additional physicians by 2025 (a figure used by the New York Times since at least November 2009) to meet the requirements of Baby Boomers coming on and newborns expected to arrive. America has a wealth of educated people with excellent training in biology and experience in computer and technological directives. We should consider these people as the basis for an American equivalent of Assistant Medical Officers.

The idea of replacing physicians with medically trained assistants may not be an absurd or distant idea. At present, the elderly are a major obstacle to health reform because they see any change in government assistance in health care as possible interference with their Medicare rights and privileges. The day will come, and soon, that the cost of Medicare will take away so much of their private income and Social Security that Medicare will become a threat to their well being. The same elderly who resist change today will clamor for it tomorrow.

Then the idea of borrowing from the Tanzanian experience will not seem absurd, but will become a necessity.

Share Your Thoughts on this Article

  Back to top

13th Annual Greater Detroit Meet-n-Greet
Thursday, March 18, 2010
6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Fishbone’s
400 Monroe Street, Detroit, Michigan 48226

Connect with your state lawmakers and fellow members of the greater Detroit metropolitan medical community

Physicians, Alliance members, medical students, and medical group managers are invited to attend

Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments will be available during the event

For additional information on this event please contact Anne’ka Marzette, Government Relations Coordinator, by phone at (517) 336-5736 or by e-mail at amarzette@msms.org

Co-sponsored by
The Wayne County Medical Society of Southeast Michigan
The Michigan State Medical Society
The Detroit Medical Society
The Wayne County Osteopathic Society

   Share Your Thoughts on this Article

  Back to top

Medicare Payment Cuts Postponed 31 Days

(Editor’s Note: The following is from the AMA) Late in the evening on March 2, the Senate voted 78-19 to pass H.R. 4691, the "Temporary Extension Act of 2010," which included provisions to extend 2009 Medicare physician payment rates through the end of the month. As a result, the 21 percent payment cut that took effect on March 1 has been postponed until April 1.

The bill passed the House on February 25, only to encounter opposition on the Senate floor by Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY), who objected to the legislation being considered as an emergency measure that would not require budgetary offsets. In addition to postponing Medicare physician payment cuts, the bill extended a variety of other expiring programs including unemployment insurance and premium subsidies for COBRA continuation coverage for those whose employment was involuntarily terminated.

Discussions are still underway in the House and Senate on the next steps that will be taken to address the Medicare payment crisis. Proposals are being circulated that would implement still another short-term patch to the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula, including proposals that would postpone cuts for 90 days, 7 months, or through the end of 2010. The AMA and those currently attending its 2010 National Advocacy Conference in Washington, DC, continue to press for permanent repeal of the SGR, rather than repeating the pattern of short-term remedies that serve to make future payment cuts more severe and increase the cost of permanent Medicare payment reform.

Members of the Federation are urged to keep up the pressure, especially in the Senate, for enacting legislation to permanently resolve the Medicare physician payment crisis. Use the AMA’s Grassroots Hotline: 1-800-833-6354.

Share Your Thoughts on this Article

Back to top

Physician Leaders Lobby For SGR Repeal

MSMS President Richard E. Smith, MD, and several other MSMS leaders attended the annual AMA National Advocacy Conference this week in Washington, DC, and met with lawmakers to push for policy such as Medicare SGR repeal. During the conference, participants heard from Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD, several legislators, political and health care columnists, who addressed the SGR issue and the national health care reform debate.

While on Capitol Hill, MSMS members also had the chance to meet personally with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Rep. Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Hills), and staff of Rep. John Dingell (D-Dearborn), Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Detroit), Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Brighton), and Rep. Fred Upton (R-St. Joseph). MSMS members urged the legislators to support a permanent repeal of the Medicare SGR reimbursement formula.

Share Your Thoughts on this Article

 Back to top

Sander Levin Replaces Rangel As House Ways And Means Chair

The Detroit news reported last week that U.S. Rep. Sander Levin has been named acting chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees Medicare and Social Security, among its other oversight responsibilities.

The committee will also play a key role in shaping fiscal policy for any new health care legislation.

Levin, a 79-year-old Democrat from Royal Oak, assumes the acting chairmanship after an ethics scandal embroiled former chair Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y. Rangel temporarily stepped down Wednesday while the House ethics committee looks into potential violations with fundraising and personal finances.

In a statement, Levin said he would work "vigorously" in his new role on jobs creation and health care legislation.

The News reported that Levin’s appointment came after Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., assumed the temporary chair position Wednesday following Rangel's announcement of a temporary leave. Stark was next in line for the chairmanship, but many of the committee's members balked at him taking the reins of what is arguably the House's most powerful committee.

Known for the occasional inappropriate outburst, Stark was seen by some colleagues as lacking the even keel needed to steer the committee, reported the News. A lack of support for Stark was compounded by a recent paltry attendance record, the result of undisclosed medical issues.

Levin's chairmanship will last until Rangel steps back in following resolution of the ethics committee's investigation or until Congress reconvenes next year following the elections. Stark will remain chairman of the Ways and Means health subcommittee.

  Share Your Thoughts on this Article

Back to top

Haiti Fundraiser Features Dr. McGeorge

THURSDAY MARCH 18

7 PM

All Are Welcome • No Reservations Required

Northminster Presbyterian Church

3633 West Big Beaver Road, Troy

Dr. Frank McGeorge, an emergency room physician at Henry Ford Hospital, covers health topics for WDIV (Channel 4). After the earthquake he traveled to Haiti doing double duty as a physician and reporter.

Dr. McGeorge has called his Haiti trip “life transforming.” He will discuss his experience in Haiti and report on the needs of its suffering people. Donations will be directed to the American Red Cross or the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. In addition, if you would like to donate new hygienic items for the people of Haiti, please bring them to the fundraiser. (See the website below for details.)

Northminster Presbyterian Church is located at 3633 West Big Beaver Rd. in Troy between Adams and Coolidge. For more information go to www.troynorthminster.com or call 248-644-5920.

   Share Your Thoughts on this Article

 Back to top

DMC Achieves Electronic Milestone

Detroit Medical Center (DMC) is one the largest health care systems in the nation to reach Stage 6 of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Analytics’ EMR (Electronic Medical Records) Adoption Model. The HIMSS Analytics’ EMR adoption model tracks and scores more than 4,000 U.S. hospitals and health systems in the HIMSS Analytics Database on their progress in completing the eight stages to creating a paperless patient record environment.

DMC began its transformation to EMR back in 2006 and was fully implemented throughout all of the DMC hospitals by October 2007.

DMC is the first and only Michigan hospital system with 100 percent doctors’ computerized orders, 100 percent medication scanning and a fully implemented Electronic Medical Records program.

Across the United States 1.6 percent of hospitals have reached Stage 6 and 50 percent are still at Stage 3, according to the Final 2009 HIMSS figures.

HIMSS is a comprehensive healthcare-stakeholder membership organization exclusively focused on providing global leadership for the optimal use of information technology and management systems for the betterment of health care.

To reach Stage 6, full physician documentation must be implemented for at least one patient care service area and a full complement of radiology PACS systems must be implemented, providing full digital medical imaging to physicians. All lower stages must have been achieved as well.

   Share Your Thoughts on this Article

 Back to top

Henry Ford Production System LEAN Training Program To Kick Off

The Henry Ford Production System LEAN training program takes place March 11-12, 2010 at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

The two-day course is a didactic and hands-on introduction to LEAN management philosophy and manufacturing-based work rules and tools designed to prepare physicians, administrators, and technical support staff for the realities and potential successes of practicing in a LEAN environment. The sessions are not only oriented to laboratory medicine but also adapted to the processes encountered in clinical services as well.

The concept of focusing on design of work, across silos of control, according to defined rules of change and design as practiced in the manufacturing industry is very pertinent to all in healthcare. The challenge for leaders is to adapt these successful approaches, that engage the entire workforce, to our unique environment in health care.

The program consists of 15.5 CME hours of education class-time.

For a full course description, agenda and on-line registration, go to:

http://www.henryford.com/hfproductionsystem

   Share Your Thoughts on this Article

 Back to top 

This publication brought to you by Natinsky Publishing Network.

Problems seeing this email? You may view it online at http://www.wcmssm.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter contact info@wcmssm.org