The Permanente journal
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The Permanente journal · Jan 2014
Mindfulness-based stress reduction in an integrated care delivery system: one-year impacts on patient-centered outcomes and health care utilization.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programs have demonstrated clinical effectiveness for both mental and physical health conditions. Less research exists on health services utilization, self-efficacy, or work productivity outcomes. ⋯ The MBSR program was associated with improvements in several patient-centered outcomes over 1 year and reductions in health services utilization up to 18 months.
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The Permanente journal · Jan 2014
RISQy business (Relationships, Incentives, Supports, and Quality): evolution of the British Columbia Model of Primary Care (patient-centered medical home).
In 2002, the British Columbia Ministry of Health and the British Columbia Medical Association (now Doctors of BC) came together to form the British Columbia General Practice Services Committee to bring about transformative change in primary care in British Columbia, Canada. This committee's approach to primary care was to respond to an operational problem--the decline of family practice in British Columbia--with an operational solution--assist general practitioners to provide better care by introducing new incentive fees into the fee-for-service payment schedule, and by providing additional training to general practitioners. This may be referred to as a "soft power" approach, which can be summarized in the abbreviation RISQ: focus on Relationships; provide Incentives for general practitioners to spend more time with their patients and provide guidelines-based care; Support general practitioners by developing learning modules to improve their practices; and, through the incentive payments and learning modules, provide better Quality care to patients and improved satisfaction to physicians. There are many similarities between the British Columbian approach to primary care and the US patient-centered medical home.
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The Emergency Department (ED) is the place where people most frequently seek urgent care. For patients living with chronic disease or malignancy who may be in a crisis, this visit may be pivotal in determining the patients' trajectory. There is a large movement in education of emergency medicine physicians, hospitalists, and intensivists from acute aggressive interventions to patient-goal assessment, recognizing last stages of life and prioritizing symptom management. ⋯ This article will summarize the following: identification of patients who may need palliation, discussing prognosis, eliciting goals of care and directives, symptom management in the ED, and making plans for further care. These efforts have been shown to improve outcomes and to decrease length of stay and cost. The focus of this article is relieving "patient" symptoms and family distress, honoring the patient's goals of care, and assisting in transition to a noncurative approach and placement where this may be accomplished.
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The Permanente journal · Jan 2014
Eluding meaninglessness: a note to self in regard to Camus, critical care, and the absurd.
Here I present a medical narrative, as a catharsis, regarding Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus in an attempt to elude meaninglessness in my difficult everyday practice of critical care medicine. It is well documented that physicians who practice critical care medicine are subject to burnout. The sense of despair that occasionally overwhelms me prompted my rereading of Camus’s classic text and caused me to recount his arguments that life is meaningless unless one is willing to take a leap of faith to the divine or, alternately, to commit suicide. This set up the examination of his third alternative, acceptance of a life without prima facie evidence of purpose and meaning, a view that may truly have some bearing on my professional life in the intensive care unit.
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The Permanente journal · Jan 2014
Prediabetes and lifestyle modification: time to prevent a preventable disease.
More than 100 million Americans have prediabetes or diabetes. Prediabetes is a condition in which individuals have blood glucose levels higher than normal but not high enough to be classified as diabetes. People with prediabetes have an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes. ⋯ To prevent 1 case of diabetes during a 3-year period, 6.9 persons would have to participate in the lifestyle intervention program. In addition, recent data suggest that the difference in direct and indirect costs to care for a patient with prediabetes vs a patient with diabetes may be as much as $7000 per year. Investment in a diabetes prevention program now may have a substantial return on investment in the future and help prevent a preventable disease.