An Integrated Mobile Acute Care Service Enhances Value.

Reducing the cost of care while enhancing its quality and experience are essential components to success in value-based care. Because emergency department (ED) and hospital settings represent high-cost environments, the authors sought to reduce their unnecessary use by deploying a novel care delivery service that offers mobile, on-demand care for high-acuity conditions in patient homes. This study is a retrospective quality improvement evaluation of the initial year of the mobile acute care model in a health system with a substantial penetration of value-based care.

Physician communication coaching effects on patient experience.

Background: Excellent communication is a necessary component of high-quality health care. We aimed to determine whether a training module could improve patients' perceptions of physician communication behaviors, as measured by change over time in domains of patient experience scores related to physician communication.

Study Design: We designed a comprehensive physician-training module focused on improving specific "etiquette-based" physician communication skills through standardized simulations and physician coaching with structured feedback.

Promoting high value inpatient care via a coaching model of structured, interdisciplinary team rounds.

The professional development of early career hospital physicians may be improved by embedding an experienced physician in a coaching role during structured, interdisciplinary team rounds. This article gives a descriptive report of such a model and discusses how it may promote delivery of high-value care to adult inpatients.

Patient satisfaction with hospital care provided by hospitalists and primary care physicians.

Background: Compared to hospital care provided by primary care physicians (PCPs), the hospitalist model provides equal-to-superior efficiency and outcomes; however, little is known about how the model affects patient satisfaction.

Methods: Random patient satisfaction telephone interviews were conducted on discharged adult medicine inpatients at 3 Massachusetts hospitals between 2003 and 2009. Questionnaires included variables assessing patient satisfaction with various physician care domains.