Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

18 PATIENT EXPERIENCE More regulations cutting into time with patients, physicians say By Kelly Gooch P hysician practices are increasingly burdened with regulations that have taken time away from patients in the last year, a Medical Group Management Association survey found. e 2018 survey involved 426 respondents from medical group practices, most of them with six to 20 physicians. Here are seven survey findings: 1. Most respondents (86 percent) said the overall regulatory burden on their medical practice in- creased over the last 12 months. Only 2 percent said it decreased, and 12 percent said it did not change. 2. Seventy-nine percent of respondents said the overall regulatory burden on their medical prac- tice related to Medicare participation has increased in the last 12 months. Nineteen percent said it did not change. Two percent said it decreased. 3. Nearly all respondents (94 percent) agreed decreasing regulatory burden would allow their medical practice to spend more resources on patient care. 4. Seventy-eight percent agreed decreasing regula- tory burden would allow their medical practice to invest in new technology. 5. Respondents rated the Medicare quality payment program — including the Merit-based Incentive Payment System — as the most bur- densome applicable regulatory issue. Eighty-eight percent of respondents said the program is very or extremely burdensome. Prior authorization and lack of EHR interoperability were also among the most burdensome issues respondents cited. 6. irty-eight percent of respondents said they view the move toward value-based payment for physicians as positive, while 57 percent reported a negative view. 7. Ninety percent of respondents said the move toward value-based payment in Medicare/Med- icaid increased the regulatory burden on their medical practice. n Missouri children's hospital uses 'medical version of Snapchat' to give families surgery updates By Harrison Cook C hildren's Mercy Kansas City (Mo.) uses an app called EASE to up- date patient's families on the progress of a procedure or surgery, according to KSHB–41 Action News. The app allows nurses in the operating room to send parents or families updates on the status of their loved ones via a messaging system. KSHB– 41 Action News referred to the app as the "medical version of Snapchat." "It's been called that by some," Stacey Gibson, MSN, RN, a nurse practi- tioner in Children's Mercy Heart Center, told the publication. "Essentially the provider in the room is able to send updates to the parents own phone and those updates disappear within approximately 60 seconds." Children's Mercy is using the app as part of a pilot program to help parents feel more involved in their child's surgery. "We have learned it's an additional way [of] enhancing that experience for the family while they are waiting during the procedure," Ms. Gibson told KSHB– 41 Action News. n Why this Michelin-star chef left the restaurant industry to cook in hospitals By Mackenzie Bean P atrick Wodni, once a chef at a popular Michelin-starred restaurant in Berlin, now prepares gourmet hospital meals using local, organ- ic food on a budget, according to The New York Times. Mr. Wodni left the restaurant industry because he grew weary of serving 10-course meals, sought better hours and "wanted to be doing some- thing useful," he told NYT. After accepting a chef position at a local hospital in Berlin, Mr. Wodni used his food industry connections to access locally and sustainably grown organic ingredients for patient meals. Within seven months, Mr. Wodni secured nine producers and six food wholesalers, compared to the hospital's original three wholesalers. He uses these high-quality ingredients to create hospital meals with a budget of just $5.50 per patient per day. "When I started, I took the budget, and said, 'What's doable with what we have?'" Mr. Wodni told NYT. "When you make 500 meals a day, you can scale." Mr. Wodni also meets with physicians at the hospital to discuss food menus and makes as many things from scratch as possible. He said he hopes the initiative will help transform how large institutions like schools and hospitals source and prepare food to increase demand for more regional, organic farming. "It's a choice, to create change from within," he told NYT. n

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