Marketing

This week’s NEJM features an article on hospital-sponsored online rating sites for docs.  The author, Vivian S. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., MBA, a prominent health services researcher discusses the adoption and success of her program at the University of Utah and how the system uses a portal open to patients to evaluate staff. In the piece, she […]

  If you have given any thought to corporatized medicine and its impact on medical practice, I advise you to read this extended New York Times piece:           The story concerns the contentious relationship between a hospitalist group and their employer, PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center in Springfield, Oregon.  The group alleges the hospital […]

  We all walk into the supermarket and see an abundance of goods. Every item has a place under alluring lighting and come-hither ads. The displays move you and your wagon, despite your beliefs, through the aisles in a deliberate way. The Walmart Supercenter manager wishes to steer your senses so as to induce the transfer of […]

I have detected something unusual.  Take a look at the cited quotes below and see if you can spot what I am referring to.  Both come from a national newspaper.  Here’s the first: On arrival, Larson was put in a room and examined by a physician assistant. He didn’t stop at the admissions office because his […]

  I am a skeptic of the physician evaluation component of HCAHPS.  I suspect patients respond to hospital amenities, and better food, bigger TVs, and swankier lobbies have a halo effect—affecting how they assess not just the structural aspects of their care, but how they perceive their caregivers. You probably share my bias.  On an […]

A recent article in the Atlantic went so far as to eulogize the popular 140-character microblogging service.  This was met with mixed feelings on Twitter, with some agreeing and others lamenting and saying it ain’t so.  Knowing that all technology has a life cycle curve, could it be Twitter would be retired and go the […]