Becker's Hospital Review

51 FINANCE CMO / CARE DELIVERY 20% of physicians prefer hospital employment, survey finds By Kelly Gooch W hile most physicians seek work in private practice, the highest number of employment oppor- tunities tend to be at hospitals, according to a survey from e Medicus Firm, a national physician recruitment company. e survey, conducted in May, involved 2,219 U.S. physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants in more than 20 medical specialties. Here are four survey findings: 1. Practicing physicians overall preferred to live and work in major metropolitan areas, suburban communities and midsized cities as opposed to small cities and small towns or rural areas. Nearly 84 percent of practic- ing physicians preferred to live and work in major metropolitan areas, suburban communities and midsized cities. Only 16 percent of practicing physicians preferred small cities and small towns or rural areas. 2. Respondents chose the Southeast (21 percent) and New England/Northeast (15 percent) as their most preferred regions in which to live and practice. Two regions — Pacific and Great Lakes — tied for the next spot, at 12 percent each. 3. Practicing physicians cited single-spe- cialty group/partnership as their most pre- ferred practice setting, with 32 percent of practicing physicians preferring single-spe- cialty groups/partnerships; 20.5 percent preferring hospital employment; and 17.4 percent preferring a multispecialty group/ partnership. Eleven percent preferred uni- versity or academic employed opportunities. 4. Nearly all e Medicus Firm's physician placements (more than 90 percent) over the last two years have been hospital em- ployment opportunities because of the high volume of employed physician openings available, compared to the number of pri- vate practice opportunities. n Independent primary care physicians are more productive, study finds By Alyssa Rege P rimary care physicians who own or act as a partner at independent practices are more engaged and more productive than PCPs employed by healthcare organizations, according to a survey cited by athenahealth con- tributor Chris Hayhurst. For the survey, 1,029 physicians from the athenahealth network were asked a variety of questions assessing their engagement and their perceived "ca- pability," or whether they believed they had the tools and resources to properly care for patients. Researchers then com- bined the information with athenahealth data on productivity, including the work relative value units physicians generate each day. Researchers discovered 37.5 percent of PCPs who owned or were partners at their practice identified as more en- gaged in their jobs, compared to 26.3 percent of PCPs employed by an orga- nization. The data also illustrated similar results in terms of productivity — PCP owners and partners generated 26.9 work RVUs per day on average, while their employed counterparts generated 23.1 work RVUs. However, physicians employed by inde- pendent practices reported less burnout than owners and partners (40 percent versus 42.9 percent). "That employee relationship may dilute some of the passion of being an owner or partner," said Josh Gray, vice presi- dent of research at athenahealth. "When you have a personal stake in a practice's success, you're probably going to feel more engaged, and that may lead you to be more productive." n Leapfrog updates hospital safety grade methodology By Megan Knowles T he Leapfrog Group published updates July 19 to the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade scoring methodology, which will take effect for the grades released in October. The methodology changes include: 1. Changes to the scoring for com- puterized physician order entry. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade pro- cess includes a measure on hospitals' implementation and effective use of com- puterized physician order entry in inpatient units. The CPOE standard in the Leapfrog Hospi- tal Survey includes two criteria: • At least 85 percent of inpatient medication orders must be entered through a CPOE system • The hospital must participate in a simulation to test their CPOE sys- tem's ability to alert prescribers to at least 60 percent of serious or fatal medication ordering errors 2. Addition of a measure on bar code medication administration. Leapfrog is also adding a measure on hospitals' use of bar code medication administration to its Hospital Safety Grade methodology. The new Leapfrog Hospital Survey mea- sure includes four criteria: • A bar code medication administra- tion system within an electronic med- ication administration record must be used at the bedside in 100 percent of medical surgical units, intensive care units and labor and delivery units • The system must include seven clini- cal decision support functions • The hospital must ensure both the pa- tient and the medication are scanned prior to medication administration at least 95 percent of the time • The hospital must ensure at least six out of eight evidence-based process- es and protocols are in place to avoid workarounds n

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