Recent articles

It pays to invest in primary care.

The cost of infarcts in Australia this year will be $18 billion dollars!
What should we do? Build more angioplasty suites? Train more cardoiologists?
If you missed Annette Katelaris’s last blog for 6minutes.com.au, its a beauty.
http://www.6minutes.com.au/annette_blog/blogposts.asp?postid=796
As Annette says – It pays to invest in primary care
She recommends Mrs Roxon read a recent article in the New Yorker [...]

Don’t eat the marshmallow – yet

How would you go in this experiment?
The capacity for delayed gratification is an important predictor of ’success’.
In this short presentation, Joachim de Posada reports on a longitudinal experiment involving 4 year old children, a marshmallow, and fifteen minutes!
Joachim de Posada says, Don’t eat the marshmallow yet:
(Via TED talks Riveting talks by remarkable people)

Patient or Consumer?

Do GPs have patients or consumers?
This was discussed during a recent collaborative workshop in Melbourne.
The answer is not straight forward. I think that Russell McGowan, from the Australian Consumers Forum, would say that he is always a person, much of the time is a consumer, and is sometimes a patient.
He is a patient when he [...]

Lets Get Physical – Architecture and General Practice

Lets Get Physical – Architecture and General Practice

Does the physical design of your surgery still support the way you look after your patients? If you had the chance, how would you redesign your practice?

Podcasts for Improvement

Podcasts for Improvement

What podcasts do you listen to?
Podcasts, of course, are similar to radio shows, except that you can download them to your iPod or iPhone (or computer) and listen to them at any time.
Beginning from tomorrow, The Institute for Healthcare Improvement is offering free audio shows.
These will be ‘lively 60-minute discussions with international experts on [...]

The Ultimate Time Management Guide for GPs

The Ultimate Time Management Guide for GPs

Apparently, GPs only have use of the same 168 hours per week as everyone else. How unfair!
Hugh Kearns and Maria Gardiner have spent 10 years working with doctors to improve their psychological well-being and sustainability. They have also acted as consultants for a number of medical organisations including the APCC.
They tell us that most GPs [...]

Knowing is Not Enough

Knowing Is Not Enough: Executives and educators must act to address challenges and reshape healthcare.:
This IHI document by Paul Bataldan et al outlines the five strategies to enable us to ‘think clearly and act decisively for better health, better care and better learning on the path forward.’

Focus on the basics.
Relentlessly reduce waste and add [...]

PocketMod: The Free Recyclable Personal Organizer

PocketMod: The Free Recyclable Personal Organizer

Here at practiceimprovement.com.au we’re on the constant lookout for an improved hipsterPDA
Ken Whyte has been using a folder up piece of paper for years. Thanks to Anton for pointing us to the 2009 version –
PocketMod: The Free Recyclable Personal Organizer
Customise, print out and fold your own groovy hipsterPDA notebook.
What do you think?

Presentation Zen: Always ask: What’s it like from their point of view?

Presentation Zen: Always ask: What’s it like from their point of view?:
I always read the Presentation Zen postings, and highly recommend the book of the same name by Garr Reynold’s.
The key to good presentations is the same as the key to good design.
One of these principles is to:
always look at things from the [...]

Poor Communication in Hospital Readmissions

Hospital readmissions: physician awareness and communication practices:
Reported (and comments) in: Journal Watch:
When patients are readmitted to the same hospital within two weeks under the care of different physicians, it was more likely than not that there would be no communication between the two teams.
In fact, half the time the team that first treated the patient [...]