Last May I saw this press release about a book by a physician from Kaiser Permanente. Initially I thought that it would be a book for those interested uniquely in US healthcare. I started reading "The Doctor Crisis" last week and still can't stop. It has captured my attention. His observations about the practice of medicine and the pressures that physicians are under, are similar in any developed country, maybe the intensity is not the same. Anyway, in the book there is a reference of a work by Sinsky et al.: In Search of Joy in Practice: A Report of 23 High-Functioning Primary Care Practices, a must read:
I missed this article when it appeared last year.What they explain is in my opinion what exactly should be done. As Tom Bodenheimer says, “the Triple Aim should be a quadruple aim, with clinician and staff satisfaction a necessity to achieve the other three aims.” Considering it as an input and not only as a goal itself is the right approach. More on Berwick's triple aim, at IHI.The current practice model in primary care is unsustainable. We question why young people would devote 11 years preparing for a career during which they will spend a substantial portion of their work days, as well as much of their personal time at nights, on form-filling, box-ticking, and other clerical tasks that do not utilize their training. Likewise, we question whether patients benefit when their physicians spend most of their work effort on such tasks.30 Primary care physician burnout threatens the quality of patient care, access, and cost-containment within the US health care system.We set out in search of joy in practice. What we found were pockets of professional satisfaction.
I am only at the begining of the book, but I wanted today to reflect this critical issue of our health systems. Something should be done beyond the triple aim. Organizational innovation is required. Right now I am not able to perceive such effort around here.
PS. About the title, focusing only on physicians is a too narrow perspective for those who have to lead a better health care , why not "transdisciplinary professionalism"?
PS. A suggestion: their blog.
