Happy Patients vs Healthy Patients

Recently, I published a blog post entitled "The Disneyfication of Nursing" wherein I examined the relatively new practice of "scripting" nurse-patient interactions, demanding that nurses communicate with patients in a specific manner.

The reality is that hospitals now want to provide care with an eye towards positive scores on patient satisfaction surveys upon which Medicare will soon begin basing some of their payments. While this is an understandable---yet short-sighted--reaction on the part of facilities that receive payments from Medicare, it is clear that there is a slippery slope that may very well backfire when it comes to achieving desired patient outcomes.

Is True Preventive Care a Reality?

Last night on RN.FM Radio, we were discussing the challenges of delivering true preventive care at a time when the economics of health care often seem to be moving us in the opposite direction. Mountains of research have shown that preventive medicine and interventions can dramatically decrease the cost of health care over time, but it seems that some insurance companies still don't bite the preventive medicine bait.