Better Care Quality; Docs Volunteer; and Caring for Low-Income Patients

Dec. 4, 2014   

TMA’s December Texas Medicine Magazine Covers These Stories and More

Improving health care quality and increasing patient safety; health care heroes serving thousands of immigrants on the border; whether to continue special funding to help underserved Texans; and physicians’ pessimism about their profession’s future highlight this month’s Texas Medical Association’s (TMA’s) Texas Medicine magazine. Here’s a more detailed summary of these articles:

“Hand in Hand: Quality Improvement, Collaboration Help Improve Patient Safety”

Physicians, patients, and health systems are working to improve patient safety in health care. Health care is safer in part because of initiatives to improve patients’ quality of care, such as the Choosing Wisely campaign, that encourages physicians and patients to discuss their care, including the benefits and harms of certain treatments.

“The patient is the reason we are here, so the patient has to be the focus of the whole process. If we don’t involve patients in their care, they are not going to get the best outcome,” said San Antonio obstetrician-gynecologist Charles Holshouser, MD, who supported creation of a guide to help inform and empower patients to communicate with doctors in preparation for their own surgery.

“Money Over Matter? 1115 Medicaid Waiver Up for Renewal”

One topic the Texas Legislature will examine is whether to extend the 1115 Medicaid Waiver, a temporary $29 billion state-federal program to deliver health care to low-income patients. In its fourth of five years, the project is funding new ways to deliver care to Medicaid and low-income patients — in the form of almost 1,500 projects statewide. Most of the efforts increase patients’ access to behavioral health services and primary and specialty care.

Some physicians say they want to see that progress continue because the new programs fill critical gaps in the health care system. But they have a word of caution: “If the conversation becomes about the dollars and not the patients, we lose,” according to Austin emergency physician Christopher M. Ziebell, MD, who is leading a project that provides crisis management care to patients with mental illness. He hopes the waiver funding continues so valuable programs can continue. “Now that [the successful programs] are just starting to mature, it would be penny-wise and pound-foolish to cut back before they get a foothold,” he said.   

 “On a Charitable Mission: Physicians Volunteer to Care for Young and Old Crossing the Border”

Physicians and other health care workers were the unsung heroes in the Rio Grande Valley this summer, caring for the tens of thousands of children and adults who streamed into the United States from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras via Mexico.

Physicians like Edinburg pediatrician Martin Garza, MD, volunteered in a massive effort to provide medical attention, food, water, and showers to the immigrant families. They set up instant triage centers and pop-up clinics staffed with teams to treat the patients, sometimes with assistance that Dr. Garza referred to as a “blessing.” Eduardo Olivarez with Hidalgo County Health and Human Services in Edinburg said despite lack of federal money to help, “We said heck with it. … We’re just going to take it on and do it on our own. It was amazing.”

“Survey Results Are In: Physician Dissatisfaction Could Hinder Patient Access to Care”

A recent survey finds that most doctors aren’t too keen on the current state of medicine, and they don’t hold out much hope for its future. The Physicians Foundation and Merritt Hawkins conducted a survey of more than 20,000 physicians nationwide and found that between Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, the expansive new ICD-10 coding system, and electronic health records, most doctors have a lot of negative feelings about the medical profession. Could that mean fewer doctors to care for Texans?

Please visit the TMA website to start reading these articles and more.
 
TMA is the largest state medical society in the nation, representing more than 47,000 physician and medical student members. It is located in Austin and has 112 component county medical societies around the state. TMA’s key objective since 1853 is to improve the health of all Texans.