Cookbook Medicine?

And to figure out what works and what doesn't, it’s necessary to gather data on health outcomes in order to differentiate effective treatments from those that are merely common, but ineffective—or actually harmful.

Yet a Perfect Storm is brewing. The Great Recession, together with the coming Medicare penalties for excess readmissions and hospital-acquired preventable conditions (such as infections), combined with the impact of national health care legislation, along with a growing healthcare quality movement, will create tremendous pressure for dramatically improved outcomes across the country. And, frankly, it’s about time.

Treatment guidelines are certainly imperfect, but developing our own comfort and mastery with respect to data collection and analysis will help dramatically improve patient care. It’s a work in progress. The culture of medicine will need to change to become more transparent, more accountable, and more evidence-based. And that will require continual measurement and evaluation of all we do, in every aspect of our caring for patients. Our patients deserve nothing less.

Coleman Associates has worked with over a thousand organizations to develop guidelines and performance dashboards to help the organization effectively impact patient outcomes. By establishing meaningful, measurable goals and then redesigning work processes to achieve those goals, our clients have increased productivity, lowered patient no-show rates, increased patient access to care, lowered overtime expense and dramatically increased patient satisfaction. So we know firsthand that you can avoid the Perfect Storm yet use the strong winds of change to fill your sails to carry you to your desired destination.

Roger Coleman
Editor-in-Chief