This is unconscionable. The purpose of palliative care is not of fulfill some administrator or researchers notion of what high value care means, and especially not to shorten length of ICU or hospital stay. I can imaging that administrators greedily agreed to these EMR modifications, and the sad part is that it isn't even difficult to imagine. Think of the administrators you know personally and ask yourself if you think they'd have any difficulty with it. Think of the physician and APP partners you work with and ask yourself if THEY would have any difficulty with it. Enough said. The purpose of palliative care is to provide comfort and human kindness to those human beings for whom we can't provide cure.
Our enterprise, which is human in its roots and its essence, is being hacked away at by counters of beans and guardians of "efficiency", and the tree is near to being felled. We ceded them the authority, handed them the axe, decades ago, and our patients pay the price. In every sense of the phrase. I fear both for our patients and for what it means to be a human physician in the coming age of AI. Several papers now show that machines can seem more empathetic to patients than their doctors do. Imagine that technology in the hands of those seeking "enterprise efficiency", the mantra of those who don't grok why we are here and seek only more dollars on the mountain of them and more hospitals in the collection.
The thread I have to hang on to is only this: machines can sound empathetic, but they can never, ever HAVE empathy. We must constantly work at showing ours. Empathy over efficiency. Knowledge over stored data. Wisdom over activity. Human kindness over all. That is the essence of medicine. When we wander from that we lose our purpose.
Good Lord. Big Brother is indeed watching. I can not think of a better way to make physicians mad and NOT cooperate.
I absolutely believe in appropriate Palliative Care consults, but the consultants need to be well trained, adequately staffed and have good social skills. This is often not the case.
Luckily, where I practice, we have a tremendous PC team and I involve them ASAP. I could care less about LOS and dollars saved. Its about human beings looking out for each other.
This is an obvious and unfortunate example of how a financially driven healthcare industry can negatively affect patient care. The ethics of this "suggestion/nudge" and the downstream implications on patient care are questionable.
This is unconscionable. The purpose of palliative care is not of fulfill some administrator or researchers notion of what high value care means, and especially not to shorten length of ICU or hospital stay. I can imaging that administrators greedily agreed to these EMR modifications, and the sad part is that it isn't even difficult to imagine. Think of the administrators you know personally and ask yourself if you think they'd have any difficulty with it. Think of the physician and APP partners you work with and ask yourself if THEY would have any difficulty with it. Enough said. The purpose of palliative care is to provide comfort and human kindness to those human beings for whom we can't provide cure.
Our enterprise, which is human in its roots and its essence, is being hacked away at by counters of beans and guardians of "efficiency", and the tree is near to being felled. We ceded them the authority, handed them the axe, decades ago, and our patients pay the price. In every sense of the phrase. I fear both for our patients and for what it means to be a human physician in the coming age of AI. Several papers now show that machines can seem more empathetic to patients than their doctors do. Imagine that technology in the hands of those seeking "enterprise efficiency", the mantra of those who don't grok why we are here and seek only more dollars on the mountain of them and more hospitals in the collection.
The thread I have to hang on to is only this: machines can sound empathetic, but they can never, ever HAVE empathy. We must constantly work at showing ours. Empathy over efficiency. Knowledge over stored data. Wisdom over activity. Human kindness over all. That is the essence of medicine. When we wander from that we lose our purpose.
Good Lord. Big Brother is indeed watching. I can not think of a better way to make physicians mad and NOT cooperate.
I absolutely believe in appropriate Palliative Care consults, but the consultants need to be well trained, adequately staffed and have good social skills. This is often not the case.
Luckily, where I practice, we have a tremendous PC team and I involve them ASAP. I could care less about LOS and dollars saved. Its about human beings looking out for each other.
It’s such an obvious, fundamental mistake to even bring cost into it in the research literature. From both a practical and a moral perspective.
When you incentivize this as the hidden agenda it is a short inevitable walk until patients catch on, probably guided by their favorite podcaster.
This is an obvious and unfortunate example of how a financially driven healthcare industry can negatively affect patient care. The ethics of this "suggestion/nudge" and the downstream implications on patient care are questionable.
Big Academia, Big Philanthropy and Big Healthcare teaming up to “bend the cost curve” for us all!
I wonder if the Palliative Care consult services were notified as to the likely massive increase in patient volume they would be encountering!