Hospitals, Aviation and Business

Boeing’s recent troubles remind us that in many ways, healthcare is like aviation:

1. They are both highly technical endeavors, guided by highly educated and trained personnel such as physicians and pilots.
2. Even small mistakes can be devastating.
3. Operating margins (operating income/revenue) are very low.
4. Both are led by businessmen not trained in the industry.
5. Some have put profit ahead of safety.

The cockpit of the typical airliner or the multitude of instruments in the typical intensive care unit demonstrates that aviation and medicine are both highly technical. Airline pilots have a minimum of 1,500 hours of flight time. This includes time spent obtaining a private pilot’s license, commercial license, instrument rating, multiengine rating, and airline transport pilot (ATP) certificate. Pilots often have additional in type ratings for turboprop or jet engines. Many have spent time as flight instructors and normally have at least 5 years of experience. A pilot must be over the age of 23 and be able to pass a 1st class medical exam. The military also trains pilots and brings them along faster, usually requiring some time commitment for the training they receive. In addition, they have recurring requirements to train in simulators to practice emergency procedures or when they begin flying new aircraft.

Physicians have four years of medical school after college. After medical school they become residents, a term from the past when the young physician resided in the hospitals. Residency lasts 3-5 years and is often followed by additional training called fellowship. For example, the typical cardiologist spends 3 years in an internal medicine resident, then an additional 3 years as a cardiology fellow. After fellowship, additional training may occur. For example, in cardiology this could be in interventional cardiology, nuclear cardiology, electrophysiology, etc. which are 1-2 years in length. In many cases additional time is spent doing research to become competitive for grants. Many have PhD’s and some have administrative or business degrees such as master of public health (MPH) or business (MBA). Like pilots, recertification is required. Nurses and physician’s assistants are also highly educated. Some have PhD’s and many have master’s degrees. Like physicians, administrative or business degrees are becoming increasingly common. 

Small mistakes can be devastating. Overshooting or undershooting a runway leading to a crash can kill not only the pilot but passengers on board. Poor handling of an emergency such as an engine failure, a door plug dislodging in flight or poor programming of the complex flight computers, such as occurred with the Boeing 737 Max, can be lethal. Similarly, mistakes in care for a sick patient can be deadly. The popular literature is rife with reports of physicians or nurses overlooking a laboratory or x-ray abnormality, giving the wrong medication, falls, or the wrong surgery on the wrong patient.

Although the high education and need for care are well appreciated, what is not so well known is that profit margins are narrow for both aviation and medicine.  Airlines are expected to have a 2.7% net profit margin in 2024 which is a slight improvement from the 2.6% in 2023 (1). Boeing’s net profit margin as of September 30, 2023 was -2.86%. (2). Hospitals began 2023 with a median operating margin of -0.9% and currently have a margin of -10.6% to 11.1% (3). For the three months ending Sept 30, the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN) had a relatively healthy 6.7% profit margin. In contrast, Banner Health was only 1.5%. Hospitals and health systems are estimated to finally break even after several years of losses secondary to the COVID-19 pandemic and higher than expected contract labor costs. The recent median margin data show that essentially half of hospitals and health systems are still operating at a financial loss, with many more just barely covering their costs (3). This means little to no discretionary money. Hospital executives who receive high compensation packages can consume much of this discretionary money. Many would argue that it could be better spent on patient care. 

Both aviation and hospitals are usually led by businessmen. This was not always so. Early airlines and hospitals were usually led by pilots and doctors. Only in the past 50 years have businessmen become involved. The rationale has nearly always been financial. Early aviators cared a great deal about demonstrating that aviation was safe. For example, Boeing Aircraft, founded in 1916 by William Boeing, was considered first and foremost an engineering firm where production of reliable aircraft was most important (4). The emphasis on quality and safety spawned the quote, “If it isn’t Boeing, we aren’t going”. In 1997 Boeing merged with its longtime rival McDonnell Douglas. The new CEO of the merged companies from McDonnell Douglas, Harry Stonecipher, brought a different attitude to the merged companies.

Figure 1. Harry Stonecipher. CEO of Boeing 2001-2, 2003-5.

Stonecipher said, “When people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that was the intent, so that it’s run like a business rather than a great engineering firm. It is a great engineering firm but people invest in a company because they want to make money” (5).  The company became fixated on stock market value and lost sight of the core value of manufacturing reliable, safe airplanes. Boeing is now reaping the decline in quality that was sown by Stonecipher years ago. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) which is supposed to  oversee airplane manufactures has also apparently become slack, allowing Boeing to have major declines in quality (6).

In hospitals we have seen a similar progression. Doctors or nurses were replaced as hospital heads in the later part of the twentieth century by businessmen who often did not understand, and in some instances did not care to understand, the core value of quality patient care. Recently, private equity firms have been acquiring hospitals or portions of hospitals such as emergency rooms or radiology practices. Data on the quality of care has been scant but there have been a multitude of complaints from doctors and nurses. Now, a recent systematic review that included 55 studies from 8 countries concluded that not only has private equity ownership increased over time across many health care sectors, but it has also been linked with higher costs to patients or payers (7). Although results for the 27 studies that looked at health care quality were mixed, the researchers found evidence that private equity ownership was tied to worse quality in 21 (7). This suggests a poorer quality of care. The lack of oversight by a variety of healthcare organizations such as the Joint Commission, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), state departments of health, etc. may be following the FAA example in becoming lax at their jobs.

Hospitals and aviation companies do have one major difference. Hospitals are generally not-for-profit entities that should operate for the public good. Profit is secondary which does not mean that losses can be long tolerated. Aviation companies are for-profit entities where revenue is primary. However, as demonstrated by Boeing, quality is still very important. As more hospitals are acquired by private equity companies, many remain concerned that quality will suffer for the sake of profit. Perhaps in 20 years we will be shaking our heads and lamenting about the decline in the quality of US healthcare the way many are viewing Boeing today.

Richard A. Robbins MD

Editor, SWJPCCS

References

1. https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2023-releases/2023-12-06-01/#:~:text=Airline%20industry%20net%20profits%20are,2.6%25%20net%20profit%20margin)
2. Boeing Profit Margin 2010-2023. Macrotrends. Available at: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BA/boeing/profit-margins#:~:text=Current%20and%20historical%20gross%20margin,%2C%202023%20is%20%2D2.86%25 (accessed 2/9/24).
3. Condon A, Ashley M. From -10.6% to 11.1%: 34 systems ranked by operating margins. Becker’s Hospital Review. December 29, 2023. Available at: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/from-10-6-to-11-1-34-systems-ranked-by-operating-margins.html (accessed 2/9/24).
4. Boeing. Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing (accessed 2/9/24).
5. Surowiecki J. What’s Gone Wrong at Boeing. The Atlantic. January 15, 2024. Available at:  https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/boeing-737-max-corporate-culture/677120/ (accessed 2/9/24).
6. Rose J. The FAA is tightening oversight of Boeing and will audit production of the 737 Max 9. January 12, 2024. NPR. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/12/1224444590/boeing-faa-737-max-9-alaska-airlines-door-plug (accessed 2/9/24).
7. Harris E. Private Equity Ownership in Health Care Linked to Higher Costs, Worse Quality. JAMA. 2023 Aug 22;330(8):685-686. [CrossRef] [PubMed]

Cite as: Robbins RA. Hospitals, Aviation and Business. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care Sleep. 2024;28:20-23. doi: https://doi.org/10.13175/swjpccs009-24 PDF

Improving Quality in Healthcare

Figure 1. Dr. Katz is a little jaded about quality metrics (1).

Everyone is in favor of quality healthcare and improving it. However, to date, initially highly touted quality measures prove to be meaningless metrics in about 5-10 years. That is, when the measures are scientifically studied, they are found to be of little worth. The cycle is then repeated, i.e., new and highly touted measures are again selected and found to be useless in 5-10 years. The latest in this cycle may be the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s (CMS) Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). The theory underlying MIPS has been that paying for quality rather than quantity will incentivize healthcare providers to improve quality. As part of the deal creating the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) MIPS was established as a pay for performance system which promised to improve healthcare while reducing costs. However, healthcare costs have continued to rise (2). Data on improvement in quality has been lacking.

Now, Bond et al. (3) have reported a study suggesting that MIPS incentivization of quality improvement in healthcare quality has questionable benefits. Among US primary care physicians in 2019, MIPS scores were inconsistently associated with performance on process and outcome measures. Bond’s study included 3.4 million patients attributed to 80,246 primary care physicians. Physicians were divided into thirds based on their MIPS score. Compared with physicians with high MIPS scores, physicians with the lowest MIPS scores had significantly worse mean performance on 3 of 5 process measures: diabetic eye examinations, diabetic HbA1c screening and mammography screening, but significantly better mean performance on rates of influenza vaccination and tobacco screening. MIPS scores were inconsistently associated with risk-adjusted patient outcomes: compared with physicians with the highest MIPS scores, physicians with the lowest MIPS scores had significantly better mean performance on emergency department visits per 1000 patients but worse performance on all-cause hospitalizations, and did not have significantly different performance on 4 ambulatory care-sensitive admission outcomes. Nineteen percent of physicians with the lowest MIPS scores had composite outcomes performance in the top quintile, while 21% of physicians with the highest MIPS scores had outcomes in the bottom quintile. These findings suggest that the MIPS program may be ineffective at measuring and incentivizing quality improvement among US physicians.

It is unclear why improvement  in intermediate surrogate markers is used rather than improvement in outcomes. Bond’s study measured MIPS scores against ER visits and hospitalizations. Patients, providers, insurers, bureaucrats, politicians, taxpayers- in other words, nearly everyone- would agree that reductions in ER visits and hospitalizations is desirable if it can be accomplished without patient harm. Similarly, reduction in unexpected deaths and improvement in patients’ feeling of well being are goals that all can support. However, the goals of healthcare are different depending on which population is asked. Patients might support their well-being, insurance cost, and provider access as being most important, whereas payors might support costs as most important. Providers might support efficiency of care and reimbursement as important. So ultimately what surrogate markers like MIPS do is choose one point of view which often does not affect outcomes (4).

There are many ways to achieve a goal depending on expertise, resources and patient characteristics. Flexibility in care allows the person most likely to understand the efficiencies of their particular system- the providers- to use their local knowledge to benefit the patients. Outside influences emphasizing surrogate markers, cost, or politics have historically failed. Unless one is willing to accept healthcare shown not to benefit patients as acceptable, MIPS should be eliminated. Replacing MIPS with an equally flawed system set of surrogate markers will likely not help.

It seems that outcome measures offer several advantages over process measures. Outcome measures include unexpected mortality, hospital readmissions, safety of care, effectiveness of care, timeliness of care, efficiency of care, and patient well-being (5). These are all thought to be important by patients, insurers, providers and even politicians. In my view, the process leading to these ultimate outcome goals is less important and the process producing the same or similar results will likely vary between providers and hospitals.

CMS should refocus their quality efforts on outcomes rather than processes which have failed as quality indicators. Physicians must decide whether they wish to continue participation in systems such as MIPS and the accompanying increase in paperwork. Unless something changes the trends of increasing paperwork over meaningless metrics will continue.

Richard A. Robbins MD

Editor, SWJPCCS

References

1. Lehmann C. Comics for Docs: Medical Cartoons Poke Fun at Today's Practices. Medscape. July 15, 2022. Available at: https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/medical-cartoons-6015473#2 (accessed (1/12/23).
2. Kurani N, Ortaliza J, Wager E, Fox L, Amin K. How Has U.S. Spending on Healthcare Changed Over Time? Peterson-KFF Health System Trasecker. February 25, 2022. Available at: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spending-healthcare-changed- time/#Total%20national%20health%20expenditures,%20US%20$%20Billions,%201970-2020 (Accessed 1/4/23).
3. Bond AM, Schpero WL, Casalino LP, Zhang M, Khullar D. Association Between Individual Primary Care Physician Merit-based Incentive Payment System Score and Measures of Process and Patient Outcomes. JAMA. 2022 Dec 6;328(21):2136-2146. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
4. Robbins RA, Thomas AR, Raschke RA. Guidelines, recommendations and improvement in healthcare. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2011;2:34-37.
5. Tinker A. The Top Seven Healthcare Outcome Measures and Three Measurement Essentials. Health Catalyst. June 29, 2022. Available at: https://www.healthcatalyst.com/insights/top-7-healthcare-outcome-measures (accessed 1/5/23).

Cite as: Robbins RA. Improving Quality in Healthcare. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care Sleep. 2023;26(1):8-10. doi: https://doi.org/10.13175/swjpccs002-23 PDF

Deciding the Future of Healthcare Leadership: A Call for Undergraduate and Graduate Healthcare Administration Education

Good medical leadership is the cornerstone of quality healthcare. However, leadership education for physicians has traditionally been largely ignored, with a focus instead on technical competence. As a result, physicians in many cases have abdicated their role as medical leaders to others, usually businessmen without medical training or expertise, and often a lack of understanding of the human issues inherent to healthcare. Recently, the Southwest Journal of Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep published a manuscript, “Leadership in Action: A Student-Run Designated Emphasis in Healthcare Leadership”, describing a curriculum designed to develop future healthcare leaders (1). Hopefully this and similar curricula will prepare physicians in setting direction, demonstrating personal qualities, working with others, managing services, and improving services (2). 

The US suffers from a crisis in healthcare partially rooted in a lack of physician- and patient-oriented leadership which has led to “hyperfinancialization” in many instances. Beginning in the 1980’s there has been an explosion in administrative costs leading to reduced expenditures on patient care but a dramatic rise in total healthcare costs, the opposite of efficient care (3). The substitution of primarily businessmen for physicians as healthcare leaders has at times led to the bottom line being the “bottom line” for assessing success in healthcare. Although it is true that metrics of “quality of care” are often measured, quality of care is hard to define and implement in a way that functionally addresses the concerns of the healthcare system, patients, and physicians. Furthermore, the concept that business personnel acting alone can improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare is difficult to support. It seems to us that the combination of business acumen, an understanding of financial realities, an appreciation of physician needs and their careers, and a deep understanding of the human side of patient care is what is needed. We believe that educating and empowering physician leaders could begin to address this need.

As can be seen in many instances in the country, new medical schools and many training programs are being created as part of, and “report” to, large health care systems, including for-profit, “not-for-profit”, and non-profit organizations(4-6). We must be very cognizant of the potential conflicts in priorities that may occur in such situations, as well as potential opportunities. While a concern could justifiably be that a system or organization focused primarily on finances might neglect the human or science-based aspect of medical training, there could also be opportunities to create leadership training that takes advantage of leadership qualities and skills from both business and medicine. On the other side of the coin, university-based training programs cannot neglect the realities of today’s healthcare system where a facility with administrative and financial issues is required for successful leadership.

We must begin to train physicians to be administrative leaders early in their careers. Leadership training in medical school such as the program described in the article by Hamidy et al (1), and other programs like a residency dedicated to providing a broad medical experience as well as administrative experience under the supervision of physician administrators would be a great start. We already see many physicians in leadership returning to school to complete MBA programs, but training must start earlier if physician leaders are to be successful. The Institute of Medicine has recommended that academic health centers “develop leaders at all levels who can manage the organizational and system changes necessary to improve health through innovation in health professions education, patient care, and research” (7).  To this end, a few healthcare organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and UT Tyler are all headed by physicians and could provide the necessary education with administrative emphases on care and financial stewardship, rather than pure profit (8-11). These better trained administrators would hopefully earn the cooperation of their providers and business partners in providing high quality care that is focused on the humanity of our patients, while keeping in mind strong financial stewardship. 

Richard A. Robbins MD, Editor, SWJPCCS

Brigham C. Willis, MD, MEd, Founding Dean, University of Texas at Tyler Medical School of Medicine Medical Center, Tyler, TX USA; Associate Editor (Pediatrics), SWJPCCS

References

1. Hamidy M, Patel K, Gupta S, Kaur M, Smith J, Gutierrez H, El-Farra M, Albasha N, Rajan P, Salem S, Maheshwari S, Davis K,  Willis BC. Leadership in Action: A Student-Run Designated Emphasis in Healthcare Leadership. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care Sleep 2022;24(3):46-54. [CrossRef]
2. Nicol ED. Improving clinical leadership and management in the NHS Journal of Healthcare Leadership 2012;4:59-69. Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3cc3/36f891d6a4b47d951b2bd280e46f4687dd5b.pdf (accessed 3/25/22). 
3. Woolhandler S, Campbell T, Himmelstein DU. Costs of health care administration in the United States and Canada. N Engl J Med. 2003 Aug 21;349(8):768-75. [CrossRef] . [PubMed]
4. Banner University Medical Center-Phoenix. https://phoenixmed.arizona.edu/banner (accessed 3/28/22)
5. HCA Healthcare. https://hcahealthcare.com/physicians/graduate-medical-education/ (accessed 3/28/22)
6. Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine. https://medschool.kp.org/homepagJCe?kp_shortcut_referrer=kp.org/schoolofmedicine&gclid=CjwKCAjwuYWSBhByEiwAKd_n_kFPWcSP0Mj_VbqHJEsnwSwT_YkIErrb1PhcWQgQnRI_odNs5qbHZRoCaMIQAvD_BwE (accessed 3/28/22)
7. Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on the Roles of Academic Health Centers in the 21st Century. Academic Health Centers: Leading Change in the 21st Century. Kohn LT, editor. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2004. [PubMed]
8. Mayo Clinic Governance. Available at: https://www.mayoclinic.org/about-mayo-clinic/governance/leadership (accessed 3/25/22). 
9. Executive Leadership Cleveland Clinic. Available at: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/about/overview/leadership/executive(accessed 3/25/22). 
10. University of Nebraska Medical Center. Meet Our Leadership Team. Available at: https://www.nebraskamed.com/about-us/leadership#:~:text=James%20Linder%2C%20MD%2C%20Chief%20Executive,Nebraska%20Medical%20Center%20(UNMC). (accessed 3/25/22). 
11. University of Texas at Tyler. https://www.uttyler.edu/president/about/ (accessed 3/28/22)

Cite as: Robbins RA, Willis BC. Deciding the Future of Healthcare Leadership: A Call for Undergraduate and Graduate Healthcare Administration Education. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care Sleep 2022;24(3):55-57. doi: https://doi.org/10.13175/swjpccs006-22 PDF

Why My Experience as a Patient Led Me to Join Osler’s Alliance

There are a number of books and articles written by doctors that relate their own experience as patients. Count this as another although I promise it will not be nearly as entertaining as “The House of God”. Over a month ago I became short of breath and a chest x-ray revealed left lower lobe consolidation. Despite lack of fever, it seemed that an infectious process was most likely, and when multiple tests for COVID-19 were negative, it was felt by my pulmonary physician to be most likely coccidioidomycosis despite a negative cocci serology. After beginning on empirical therapy with fluconazole for nearly a month, I am feeling better.

Most of us know that there is considerable laboratory to laboratory variation in serologic tests for Valley Fever (1). However, when my initial cocci serology was negative, efforts to send it a good reference lab such as Pappagianis’ Lab at UC Davis became nearly impossible. After making an appointment at Sonora Quest and waiting a week for an appointment to get my blood drawn, it was apparently sent to Davis, but when payment was not assured, it was not run. I would have been paid for it out of pocket but there seemed no way to communicate this.

Similarly, it took 3 visits to a commercial outpatient radiology practice, Simon Med, to get a routine chest x-ray. I can understand the need for appointments for CT scans. However, routine x-rays were so backed up that I waited several hours to get a chest x-ray performed although I did get an electronic copy. Fortunately, I am able to read my own chest x-ray and did not need to wait for a radiologist’s report which arrived on a Tuesday after the chest x-ray was taken late on a Friday.

Honestly, I had no idea that our patients were receiving such poor care. Delays of this magnitude go beyond what I view as acceptable. Overall, I think my doctors are great but I have concerns about an overall decline in patient care. It should not take a week to get routine labs drawn. Sick people should not be making multiple trips to get a simple chest x-ray. This may be another symptom of the hyperfinancializaton of medicine where patient care is sacrificed for profit. The hospital labs and x-ray departments of years ago were run by physicians and mostly concerned with patient care and not losing money. Today with businessmen controlling nearly all aspects of healthcare patient care is less important than maximizing profits.

I worry that our businessmen/managers are buying medical practices and directly supervising healthcare professionals. Healthcare is a business to them, no different than selling hamburgers at McDonalds. Their goals of increasing income and reducing expenses to maximize profits while hiding behind the façade of a non-profit organization is quite apparent. However, what is equally clear is that there is a lack of medical knowledge in these medical managers and decisions can be “penny wise but dollar foolish”. Look at the decision to not pay for a more reliable cocci serology which costs $80. They have spent more than this on fluconazole. Bad medicine is usually costly.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light many of the inadequacies of business interests dominating medicine (2). Hospitals are overflowing and inadequate personnel with inadequate personal protective equipment are available to care for them. Those remaining providers are expected to just “pick up the slack”.

Although I have long lamented (some say whined) about the businessmen’s mismanagement of medicine, what could we do? Business interests seemed to control the hospitals, the insurance companies, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the licensing boards. We were being squeezed and trainees just beginning practice were in no position either financially or professionally to confront business interests which could end their career.

I appear to not be the only one who feels way. Last year, Eric Topol MD, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and editor-in-chief of Medscape, wrote a piece published in The New Yorker, "Why Doctors Should Organize” (3). In it, he explained his view that the nation's nearly 900,000 practicing doctors needed to organize to bring back the doctor-patient relationship that existed before the business part of medicine took over its soul. Physician organizations such as the American Medical Association (AMA) represents only about 17% of US physicians, and have done little for medicine as a profession. The next largest, the American College of Physicians, represents internal-medicine specialists. Most of the smaller societies (e.g., ATS, American College of Chest Physicians) represent a subspecialty and have correspondingly fewer members each. The AMA once represented three-fourths of American doctors; the growth of subspecialty societies may have contributed to its diminishment. In any case, there is no single organization that unifies all doctors. The profession is balkanized into different specialties each hostilely eyeing the other specialty organizations.

Therefore, Topol has led the formation of Osler's Alliance (now Medicine Forward) (4). This organization, named for William Osler, hopes to draw together the nation's doctors, who come from different backgrounds, specialties, and political leanings but agree that the way they interact with patients is not what they envisioned when they decided to devote their lives to medicine.

"Such an organization wouldn't be a trade guild protecting the interests of doctors," Topol wrote. "It would be a doctors' organization devoted to patients (5)."Another organizer of Osler's Alliance, Esther Choo, MD, MPH, an emergency physician and professor at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, described physicians' widespread daily feeling that "this can't be the way it's supposed to be," but also a lack of empowerment to make changes (5). That's where the numbers come in, she said. A massive group of physicians standing up against practices could force change.

The first step, Choo said, is to break down the fundamental mission into "bite-sized advocacy (5)." That might entail advocating for answers to why increased documentation demands are necessary and how, specifically, they help the patient rather than dutifully complying with directives for more charting.

The leaders emphasize that membership in the group is not about money, which is why it's only $5 a year. Signing up builds support and allows access to chat streams and information in a broad network. "When you start seeing advertisements for health systems that say, 'We give the gift of time to patients and clinicians,' " answered Topol, "then we'll know we're turning the right corner (5)."

If you are a physician or other provider, you might consider joining Osler’s Alliance. What have you and your patients got to lose? Staying the present course would seem to lead to nowhere.

Richard A. Robbins, MD

Editor, SWJPCC

References

1. Galgiani JN, Knox K, Rundbaken C, Siever J. Common mistakes in managing pulmonary coccidioidomycosis. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2015;10(5):238-49. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc054-15
2. Dorsett M. Point of no return: COVID-19 and the U.S. healthcare system: An emergency physician's perspective. Sci Adv. 2020 Jun 26;6(26):eabc5354. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
3. Topol E. Why Doctors Should Organize. The New Yorker. August 5, 2019. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/why-doctors-should-organize (accessed 11/30/20).
4. Osler’s Alliance website. Available at: https://oslersalliance.mn.co/about (accessed 11-30-20).
5. Frellick M. Medical Leaders Launch Grassroots Doctors' Alliance. Medscape. November 25, 2020. Available at https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/941623 (accessed 12/30/20).

Cite as: Robbins RA. Why My Experience as a Patient Led Me to Join Osler’s Alliance. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2020;21(6):138-40. doi: https://doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc066-20 PDF

CMS Rule Would Kick “Problematic” Doctors Out of Medicare/Medicaid

Last week CMS announced that beginning January 1, 2020, they assumed a new power to bar clinicians' participation if agency officials can cite potential harm to patients based on specific incidents (1). CMS created this new authority through the 2020 Medicare physician fee schedule. CMS claimed that it had no pathway to address "demonstrated cases of patient harm" in cases where clinicians maintain their licenses (2).

The rule drew criticism from multiple physician groups with none supporting it. The Alliance of Specialty Medicine said CMS has been using "vague and subjective" criteria to evaluate physicians for some time. The new revocation authority "just compounds the problem," the Alliance told Medscape Medical News (2).

In drafting the final version of the rule, CMS rejected many suggestions offered in comments about the revocation authority. The AMA pointed out that CMS hid such a major change in the annual physician fee schedule under the opioid treatment program section (2). The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) said CMS should defer to state medical boards and other state oversight entities regarding issues associated with protecting beneficiaries from patient harm (2). In the final rule, CMS argued that it needs the new revocation authority due to cases where "problematic" behavior persists despite detection by state boards.

During the past week two examples of CMS’ bureaucratic nature were observed in my practice. First, I was told from a durable medical equipment provider that a new CMS requirement was that when reordering patient continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) supplies that I would need to check, initial and date each item from a long list of supplies whether it was ordered or not. Second, an asthma patient was referred to me that was using daily albuterol. I recommended a long-acting beta agonist/corticosteroid combination but was told that the patient must fail corticosteroids alone before prescribing the more expensive combination therapy. Nearly every physician and many patients have seen some nameless and faceless clerk at CMS give them the “ol’ run around”. CMS’ argument that they are improving quality and protecting patients would be more believable if these and the many other instances of bureaucratic overreach were rare rather than common. 

Many “quality” programs have been thrust on clinicians in the past without any demonstrable improvement in healthcare for patients (3). Rather quickly these programs morph from a quality program to a hammer used to control clinicians and suppress dissent. In seems likely that CMS’ new self-assumed authority will be the same. If CMS wishes to improve care, they should deal with examples such as those above and many more instances of time wasting paper work and poor care that they mandate. Two recommendations to reduce these poor decisions are: 1. List the name of the licensed practitioner responsible for each CMS decision; and 2. Establish an efficient appeals process not controlled by CMS. These would reduce the instances of poor, anonymous decision makers hiding behind the anonymity of the CMS bureaucracy and could go a long way in improving patient care.

Richard A. Robbins, MD

Editor, SWJPCC

References

1. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. November, 2019. Available at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2019-24086.pdf (accessed 11/9/19). Scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on 11/15/2019 and available online at https://federalregister.gov/d/2019-24086.
2. Young KD. CMS sharpens weapon to kick 'problematic' docs out of Medicare. Medscape Medical News. November 7, 2019. Available at: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/920994?nlid=132505_5461&src=wnl_dne_191108_mscpedit&uac=9273DT&impID=2159379&faf=1 (accessed 11/9/19).
3. Robbins RA. The unfulfilled promise of the quality movement. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2014;8(1):50-63. [CrossRef]

Cite as: Robbins RA. CMS rule would kick “problematic” doctors out of Medicare/Medicaid. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2019;19(5):146-7. doi: https://doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc066-19 PDF 

In Defense of Eminence-Based Medicine

An internal memo to the members of the Society for Truculent Underappreciated Practitioners of Inpatient Doctoring

Brigham C. Willis, MD, MEd

Department of Medical Education and Division of Cardiovascular Intensive Care
Phoenix Children's Hospital
Phoenix, AZ USA

To arms, august compatriots! Our very way of life is threatened by the hordes of barbarians at our gates. Armed not with pitchforks and torches, but with Cochrane reviews, “multicenter randomized controlled trials”, the Interwebs, and “tablet computers”, they besiege our traditions and values, and threaten our place in the hierarchy of medicine. In no uncertain terms, they want to remove us from our place of reverence, from our position of respect, and replace us with guidelines, pathways, and protocols. To do nothing is to perish. We must stand together, and fight this tide, or be swept away in the tidal wave of journals and statistical analyses buffeting our land. Join or Die!

For generations, we have preserved our careers and medicine itself by strictly honoring a system based on “eminence-based medicine” or “EBM”. This is the practice of making the same sound decisions with increasing confidence over an impressive number of years (some of the barbarians have even mocked and disregarded this definition, co-opting “EBM” for their own purposes and replacing “sound decisions” in the true definition with “mistakes”. The nerve.) Upon what else does our hallowed practice rest than this? Imagine the disorder and chaos if students or lowly interns were allowed to question the decisions we, the wise practitioners, make. I have seen enough patents with pyemia or blood rot in my time to know how to treat them, thank you very much. I don’t need some unwashed whelp of a trainee waiving a New England Journal article in my face, saying I am giving too much or too little fluid to the patient. I once took care of a septic patient and gave them absolutely no fluid, and they survived. So much for the so-called “evidence”. There is no amount of evidence that can replace intuition and sound clinical acumen. As many of you likely can affirm, a true clinician can almost feel the right thing to do. A challenge to this as the basis of medicine is akin to advocating a change from the “art of medicine” to the “science of medicine”. Blasphemy!

I am sure each of you have experienced some form of this assault. In fact, the medical literature today is full of direct attacks on eminence (1-3). The threat is becoming more acute by the day, as even the lowliest trainee has access to the entire world’s archive of medical literature in their pocket. To survive, we must arm ourselves and fight back. We must have at the ready an armamentarium of weapons and tools to stem the tide, and turn back the latter-day Visigoths who fling their regression analyses, critical appraisal tools, and “levels of evidence” at our battlements. What follows is an attempt to codify some of those tools, and help all of our eminent practitioners to soldier on in the fight.

1. “Harrumph and eye roll”. When confronted with what seems like sound evidence that counters the way you have treated something for many years, simply roll your eyes in a dramatic way, make a “harrumph”-ing sound quite loudly, and say something like “Well, balanced salt solutions may make physiologic sense, but normal saline has worked for me for many years.” The italics imply rhetorically stressing the avenue of attack chosen by the challenger, and throwing it back at them in a mocking, or sarcastic way, and then reminding them of how much more experience you have than they do. While seemingly basic and perhaps puerile, it is astounding how effective this technique can be. But the “harrumph” you throw in must be emphatic, and said with conviction. This technique rests entirely on how invested in it you can be.
2. “My specific patient is different”. These evidence cultists always want to assume that their numbers and ratios always apply to everyone. It is relatively simple to find some minor clinical difference between the particular patient under discussion and the participants in whatever trial your foe is citing. For example, when challenged on your management of a ventilated patient, you can say, “Well, in that trial, they didn’t specifically analyze the subgroup of patients with influenza and CHF, did they?” or “the secretions of influenza in a patient with CHF are clearly unique”. Defenses like this usually put them on their heels, as they will either have to go back to the trial itself to check, or admit that they are not quite sure.
3. “In my experience…” No matter how much evidence is presented, it is always possible to unearth the musty contents of your own shadowy past. Ill-defined and utterly unverifiable, your “experiences” with individual patients, if described colorfully and in detail, can easily counter dry references to impersonal literature reports. It can also refute arguments of physiology. If you have seen something before, your eye-witness account is much more reliable than some “deep understanding of physiologic principles”.
4. Question the quality of the training of the evidence-hound. No matter what they say or how many “facts” they can cite, one can almost always cast aspersions on their training in some way. “When I was at Harvard...” is a near-perfect oratory introduction to asserting your proper place.
5. Point out some minute problem in the design of the study being quoted. Although somewhat unsavory, as it may require stooping to the tactics employed by our attackers, it is always possible to take issue with some aspect of any given study. “I can’t believe they used a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, when they clearly should have used Pitman’s permutation test. The results of this study are suspect to say the least.” This should require quite a bit of investigation by the whelp, by which time you should be safely ensconced in the doctor’s lounge.
6. Cite a report that supports your viewpoint. Again somewhat unsavory, but even when someone states that 3 randomized control trials (RCTs) have shown that a certain treatment is “clearly” superior to how you have been doing things, you can almost always cite a trial that does support you (“while it is interesting that those investigations show that digitalis is not effective in heart failure in general, Jones et al. showed that it reduced readmission rates in the Congo when given to patients with CHF due to parasitic disease...”). Always remember to end the discussion with “so clearly the jury is still out on this subject.”
7. Lean heavily on the axiom that “lack of evidence of efficacy is not evidence of lack of efficacy”. This is very powerful and can be carried quite far. No matter how many trials show that a treatment doesn’t work, this single sentence irrefutably ends discussion in most cases.
8. Utilize physiologic smoke screens. Delve deeply into your medical school texts, and have at the ready in depth discussions of biochemical and physiologic pathways. Learn to describe how they interact in such detail that no one can really follow what you are getting at, but throw in enough polysyllabic words and pathway intermediates and you are untouchable, no matter how much evidence is tossed around. In today’s world, most trainees’ education in biochemistry, physiology, and anatomy has been short-shrifted to a stunning degree by the addition of silly classes on biostatistics, ethics, diversity, professionalism, and other such drivel, so you can be generally assured they will have no comeback for this defense.
9. “Cookbook medicine”. Throw out derogatory terms such as “cookbook medicine” and wax nostalgic for the times when doctors truly “thought” about their patients and cared about them. This is particularly effective when you can question the humanity of your foe, asserting that “statistics and numbers can never substitute for the human being in the bed in front of you. You would do well to remember that.” Followed up with a moving patient story where your attention to detail and the history of that individual patient made all the difference, and where your diagnosis and treatment plan flew in the face of the naysayers, and you are safe.
10. Parachutes. Go nuclear, and question evidence itself. This is obviously high-risk, but can be very effective. Building on the excellent article utilizing the example of the parachute as a preventative treatment for high-altitude falls that has never been verified in a RCT (despite the fact that there are case reports of parachute-less high-altitude falls resulting in subject survival) (4), make the point that medicine is more than evidence. Rub their nose in the fact that true doctors can see the value in treatments that are of “obvious” value, even without evidence.
11. Question the work ethic or integrity of the evidence bearer. No matter what they say, find some fault with their daily routine, or pre-rounding attention to detail, or accuracy of information they provided about the patient. Proceed to vociferously point out their deficiencies, making sure that everyone in ear shot is aware of what is happening, and intimate that anything they say is suspect.
12. Trump them. If all else fails, utilize the debate technique made so famous by the current president. Previously known as “vehemence-based medicine” (5), simply raising the volume of your opinion and employing an attitude that your opponent is a complete and utter moron will shut down any opposition. With this technique, if employed correctly, any amount of logic or number of facts will wilt in the glare of your intensity and scorn.
13. Eloquence and elegance based argumentation. Much to the chagrin of the attackers, it is still well-accepted that “brilliant oratory,…a year round suntan, [and/or] a silk suit” (5) can overwhelm the senses of most of the sandal-wearing hippies who worship at the altar of evidence. Keep your style impressive and tighten your bowties!

Be strong, my brothers and sisters! While some furtive attempts have been made to fight back and harness the power of our eminence (6), we are clearly in danger. In the face of this growing threat, our ability to wield our eminence may falter. We hope that the techniques described herein will serve you well in our struggle. Let not these heathens question our place or sacred way of life. Stand tall, and continue to be the face of “EBM”.

References

1. Bhandari M, Zlowodzki M, Cole PA. From eminence-based practice to evidence-based practice: a paradigm shift. Minn Med. 2004 Apr;87(4):51-4. [PubMed]
2. Kros JM. Grading of gliomas: the road from eminence to evidence. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol. 2011 Feb;70(2):101-9. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
3. Pincus T, Tugwell P. Shouldn't standard rheumatology clinical care be evidence-based rather than eminence-based, eloquence-based, or elegance-based? J Rheumatol. 2007 Jan;34(1):1-4. [PubMed]
4. Smith GC, Pell JP. Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials. BMJ. 2003 Dec 20;327(7429):1459-61. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
5. Isaacs D, Fitzgerald D. Seven alternatives to evidence based medicine. BMJ. 1999 Dec 18-25;319(7225):1618. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
6. Hay MC, Weisner TS, Subramanian S, Duan N, Niedzinski EJ, Kravitz RL.Harnessing experience: exploring the gap between evidence-based medicine and clinical practice. J Eval Clin Pract. 2008 Oct;14(5):707-13. [CrossRef] [PubMed]

Cite as: Willis BC. In defense of eminence-based medicine. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2017;14(2):69-72. doi: https://doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc019-17 PDF 

Qualitygate: The Quality Movement's First Scandal

Charles R. Denham is probably not a name familiar to most of our readers. Denham's name popped into the news when the Justice Department alleged that CareFusion, then a division of Cardinal Healthcare, paid Denham $11.6 million to influence the Safe Practices Committee at the National Quality Forum (NQF).

Dr. Charles R. Denham

Even though Denham may not be well known, readers might recognize the names of some of the organizations and individuals with whom Denham worked (2,3). Besides the NQF, these include the Institute of Medicine, Leapfrog Group, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Clinton Global Health Initiative, Discovery Channel, General Electric, Cleveland Clinic, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Catholic Healthcare Partners, and Seton Medical Center. Prominent individuals associated with Denham include actor Dennis Quaid (whose newborn twins were nearly killed by a medication mistake) and Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, famous for safely landing a crippled jetliner in the Hudson River. Lesser known, but prominent in the patient safety movement, are Dr. Kenneth Kizer (former Under Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and founding president and former CEO of the NQF) and Dr. Donald Berwick (founder and former President of the Institute of Healthcare Improvement and former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).

Denham is a member of the President's Circle of the National Academies of Science of the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. He has been a Senior Fellow in the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University and instructor at the Harvard School of Public Health. He teaches leadership and innovation on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and was an adjunct Professor at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. He played a leadership role in the development of a computerized prescriber order entry (CPOE) simulator that measures performance improvement of hospital medication management systems, driving patient safety through healthcare information technologies. He founded CareMoms, CareKids, and CareUniversity, which are programs that are focused on helping families survive healthcare harm and waste. He was until very recently the editor of the Journal of Patient Safety (4).

Many groups have benefitted by recommending best practices, but an endorsement by the NQF can mean riches for companies and individuals (4). Created in 1999 at the behest of a Presidential commission, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit takes private donations and collects fees from members, including consumer groups, health plans and medical providers. Five years ago, Health and Human Services hired the NQF to endorse measures to show whether health care spending is achieving value for patients and taxpayers. The contract has since grown substantially and by 2012 made up nearly three-fourths of the organization’s $26 million in revenue. The NQF’s standards are widely adopted. The report produced by the committee Denham co-chaired included recommendations for best practices in 34 areas of care.

The quality movement is distancing itself from Denham and denying any knowledge of Denham's conflicts of interest or alleged kickbacks (5). However, there were multiple clues. Although Denham was trained as a radiation oncologist, he was not a practicing physician (6). Known as an entrepreneur, Denham had formed and folded numerous for-profit and non-profit companies. Those listed by the Texas Secretary of State’s office include the Texas Institute of Medical Technology; Health Care Concepts; TD Enterprises Management; Spectrum Holdings International (also known as Austin Liberty, Inc.); Tetelestai, Inc. (Greek for “It is finished,” a New Testament reference); Aircare International, Inc. (Denham at one time worked in the aviation industry); CRD Health Ventures, Inc.; and Assisted Better Living Everywhere, Inc. Denham and his family live in a palatial waterfront home in Laguna Beach, California, whose value Zillow estimates at $10.5 million (6). The speaker’s bureau lists Denham’s minimum fee for U.S. engagements as an average of $50,000 to $75,000, far in excess of usual physician speaking fees (6). Denham even boasted his own webpage on Wikipedia and had a contract with Celebrity Talent International (2,4). Although Denham's biography in Wikipedia claims over 100 scientific publications a quick check of PubMed reveals only 25 with nearly all published in the last 5 years in the Journal of Patient Safety where Denham was editor.

In his article in Forbes, Michael Millenson quotes an accomplished patient safety advocate who left her first meeting with Denham convinced she had met with one of the most brilliant individuals of her life (4). Those who know Denham suspect that he would agree (6). The tendency of very smart and successful individuals to boss others is well known because in their own minds they are smarter and better, even when the evidence says otherwise. Some can even blur the boundaries between what they have done, what they are doing and what they hope to do-convincing themselves that it is in the patients' best interests. Like Watergate did to the Nixon White House, Denham has tainted many in the quality movement. Hence the title of this editorial-"Qualitygate". A lot of money is involved in patient safety and there are undoubtedly some willing to sacrifice principles for personal gain. This will probably not be the last scandal in the quality movement. As we have noted previously, there are probably too many guidelines based on expert opinion and some are wrong (7). Physicians need to exercise their own best judgment in deciding which guidelines need to be implemented.

Richard A. Robbins, MD*

Editor

Southwest Journal of Pulmonary and Critical Care

References

1. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs. CareFusion to pay the government $40.1 million to resolve allegations that include more than $11 million in kickbacks to one doctor". Available at: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2014/January/14-civ-021.html (accessed 2/21/14).
2. Wikipedia. Charles Denham. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Denham (accessed 2/21/14). 
3. Newswise. Dr. Charles Denham named editor of Journal of Patient Safety. Available at: http://www.newswise.com/articles/dr-charles-denham-named-editor-of-journal-of-patient-safety (accessed 2/21/14).
4. Allen M. Hidden financial ties rattle top health quality group. Propublica. Available at: http://www.propublica.org/article/hidden-financial-ties-rattle-top-health-quality-group (accessed 2/21/14).
5. Carlson J. Groups cut ties to Denham. Modern Healthcare. Available at: http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20140201/MAGAZINE/302019962 (accessed 2/21/14). 
6. Millenson M. The money, the MD and a $12 million patient safety scandal. Forbes. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelmillenson/2014/02/14/the-money-the-md-and-a-12-million-patient-safety-scandal/ (accessed 2/21/14).
7. Robbins RA. What's wrong with expert opinion? Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2014;8(1):71-3. [CrossRef]

*The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado or California Thoracic Societies or the Mayo Clinic.

Reference as: Robbins RA. Qualitygate: the quality movement's first scandal. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2014;8(2):132-4. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc022-14 PDF

Why Start A New Pulmonary/Critical Care Journal?

Reference as: Robbins RA. Why start a new pulmonary/critical care journal? Southwest J Pulm Crit Care 2010:1:1-2. (Click here for PDF Version)

With apologies to Paul McCartney, “You'd think that people would have had enough of [pulmonary and critical care journals]. But I look around me and I see it isn't so” (1). With the inception of the Southwest Journal of Pulmonary and Critical Care (SWJPCC) we have several goals, not adequately filled by the present pulmonary and critical care publications.

First, the primary goal of the SWJPCC is pulmonary and critical care medicine fellow education. The American College of Graduate Medical Education has placed increasing requirements for clinical education in post-graduate medical education while simultaneously increasing the requirements for scholarly activity for fellows and faculty, yet restricting fellow work hours (2). It seems that these conflicting goals are unrealistic, unless clinical scholarly activity can be incorporated into a training program. In starting the SWJPCC, we hope to fulfill the scholarly needs of both fellows and faculty while emphasizing clinical medicine through the publication of such time honored activities as case presentations and reviews of the literature.

Second, peer-reviewed journals send articles out for review. While we will do the same, we have certain expectations of our reviewers. Unfortunately, reviewers are not always carefully chosen.  Sometimes inexperienced reviewers, feeling the need to establish themselves, indulge their own sense of self-importance by becoming “nagging nabobs of negativism” (3) demanding the answer to “the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything” (4) before a manuscript will see the light of publication. While emphasizing the highest medical journal standards, we realize that fellow and faculty time is limited and we hope to be reasonable regarding expectations of our authors.

Third, there has been a trend in some journals towards publishing articles emphasizing the “short-comings” of physicians while emphasizing the virtues of identifying these “faults”. For example, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article from a health regulatory organization (the Joint Commission), touting improved healthcare through administration of the pneumococcal vaccine to adults (5). This article implied that physicians who did not provide this vaccination to their adult patients were delinquent, and the Joint Commission’s efforts “corrected” this deficiency. However, previous publications have shown that pneumococcal vaccination in older adults results in a slight increase in the risk for hospitalization, but does not decrease mortality nor the risk for pneumonia (6), findings largely confirmed by a recent meta-analysis (7). Publication of articles substituting politics or opinions (especially when they are self-serving) for evidence-based care is not part of the mission of the SWJPCC.

Last, the SWPCC aspires to be a resource for practicing physician education, emphasizing case presentations, clinical articles, review articles, imaging, and journal clubs. We hope this journal will be useful for busy clinicians, assisting them in better serving the needs of their patients while also providing insight regarding practice matters of interest to the pulmonary and critical care medicine community.

With that, we begin.

Richard A. Robbins, M.D. on behalf of the Editors

References

1. McCartney, Paul. “Silly Love Songs”. Wings at the Speed of Sound. Palorphone/EMI, 1976.
2. http://www.acgme.org/acWebsite/nav/Pages/navPDcoord.asp
3. Agnew, Spiro. San Diego, CA. 1970.
4. Adams, Douglas. Life, the Universe and Everything. ISBN 0-330-26738-8.
5. Jha AK, Li Z, Orav EJ, Epstein AM. Care in U.S. hospitals--the Hospital Quality Alliance program. N Engl J Med. 2005;353:265-74.
6. Jackson LA, Neuzil KM, Yu O, Benson P, Barlow WE, Adams AL, Hanson CA, Mahoney LD, Shay DK, Thompson WW; Vaccine Safety Datalink. Effectiveness of pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine in older adults. N Engl J Med. 2003;348:1747-55.
7. Huss A, Scott P, Stuck AE, Trotter C, Egger M. Efficacy of pneumococcal vaccination in adults: a meta-analysis. CMAJ. 2009;180:48-58.