Health Care Reform Requires Renaissance of Flexnerian Academic Medical Centers

The forces that are reshaping the delivery of health care through much of the developed world are especially acute within academic centers that carry the responsibility for delivering that care while advancing medical knowledge and ensuring well-trained physicians. Gastroenterology will not be spared any of those forces, and in some ways represents the leading edge of their impact. Though the dynamics vary within the context of the health-care delivery and scientific enterprise of individual countries, common elements are demands for greater accountability and transparency in how academic medical centers demonstrate their value while assuring broad access to their expertise. In the United States, underlying many forms of change in the payment scheme are the common elements that will increasingly place the risk for the cost of care on providers rather than on the payers, be it government or private, as has historically been true. At the same time, academic medical centers, with gastroenterology responsible for addressing the burden of digestive diseases, must remain the stem cells for health care integrating all their missions and providing the foundation of medical advances which will ultimately improve human welfare. What will academic gastroenterology units look like if they are able to effectively respond to these forces? Gastrointestinal (GI) divisions and faculty will own new roles including responsibility for system success in caring for patients. They will evolve their training programs to provide the next generation with skills needed to succeed, including the discipline of system improvement, team leadership and others. And there will be new models that will drive the organization of research that are not as conventionally self-contained within the gastroenterology units, but fostering research teams that have hubs and spokes. The vitality of GI divisions will depend on the willingness to seize ownership of the new value proposition of disease management ensuring that each patient achieves the best outcome with the most effective use of resources and endeavor within their systems to capture some of that value to invest in their training and research missions. In the course of that evolution, gastroenterology will be well served by rebalancing the dependence on existing modalities. If procedural gastroenterology becomes the sole value proposition, it will lead to an increasingly narrow view of the field.

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Use of Facebook by Academic Medical Centers in Taiwan During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Observational Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.21501 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Wei-Min Chu ◽

Gow-Jen Shieh ◽

Shi-Liang Wu ◽

Wayne Huey-Herng Sheu

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Social Media ◽

Observational Study ◽

Health Care Organizations ◽

Pearson Correlation ◽

Public Hospitals ◽

Academic Medical Centers ◽

Medical Centers ◽

Academic Medical ◽

Nationwide Observational Study

BACKGROUND The battle against COVID-19 remains ongoing, and social media has played an important role during the crisis for both communication and health promotion, particularly for health care organizations. Taiwan’s success during the COVID-19 outbreak is well known and the use of social media is one of the key contributing factors to that success. OBJECTIVE This nationwide observational study in Taiwan aimed to explore the use of Facebook by academic medical centers during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS We conducted a nationwide observational study of all Facebook fan page posts culled from the official accounts of all medical centers in Taiwan from December 2019 to April 2020. All Facebook posts were categorized into either COVID-19–related posts or non–COVID-19–related posts. COVID-19–related posts were split into 4 categories: policy of Taiwan’s Center for Disease Control (TCDC), gratitude notes, news and regulations from hospitals, and education. Data from each post was also recorded as follows: date of post, headline, number of “likes,” number of messages left, number of shares, video or non-video post, and date of search. RESULTS The Facebook fan pages of 13 academic medical centers, with a total of 1816 posts, were analyzed. From January 2020, the percentage of COVID-19 posts increased rapidly, from 21% (January 2020) to 56.3% (April 2020). The trends of cumulative COVID-19 posts and reported confirmed cases were significantly related (Pearson correlation coefficient=0.93, P<.001). Pages from private hospitals had more COVID-19 posts (362 versus 289), as well as more video posts (72 posts, 19.9% versus 36 posts, 12.5%, P=.011), when compared to public hospitals. However, Facebook pages from public hospitals had significantly more “likes,” comments, and shares per post (314, 5, 14, respectively, P<.001). Additionally, medical centers from different regions displayed different strategies for using video posts on Facebook. CONCLUSIONS Social media has been a useful tool for communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. This nationwide observational study has helped demonstrate the value of Facebook for academic medical centers in Taiwan, along with its engagement efficacy. We believe that the experience of Taiwan and the knowledge it can share will be helpful to health care organizations worldwide during our global battle against COVID-19.

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The U.S. Health Care System Is in Crisis: Implications for Academic Medical Centers and Their Missions

Academic Medicine ◽

10.1097/00001888-200608000-00007 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 81 (8) ◽

pp. 713-720 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

Richard Lofgren ◽

Michael Karpf ◽

Jay Perman ◽

Courtney M. Higdon

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Health Care System ◽

Academic Medical Centers ◽

Medical Centers ◽

Academic Medical ◽

The U.S ◽

Care System

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Securing Health Care: Assessing Factors That Affect HIPAA Security Compliance in Academic Medical Centers

2011 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences ◽

10.1109/hicss.2011.368 ◽

2011 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

J W Brady

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Academic Medical Centers ◽

Medical Centers ◽

Academic Medical ◽

Security Compliance

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Innovating From Within: A Process Model for User-Centered Digital Development in Academic Medical Centers (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.11048 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Sara Kuppin Chokshi ◽

Devin M. Mann

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Process Model ◽

Design Thinking ◽

Academic Research ◽

Integrated Approach ◽

Academic Medical Centers ◽

Medical Centers ◽

Academic Medical ◽

Digital Development ◽

User Centered

BACKGROUND Design thinking and human-centered design approaches have become increasingly common in health care literature, particularly in relation to health information technology (HIT), as a pathway toward the development of usable, diffusible tools and processes. There is a need in academic medical centers tasked with digital innovation for a comprehensive process model to guide development that incorporates current industry trends, including design thinking and lean and agile approaches to digital development. OBJECTIVE This study aims to describe the foundations and phases of our model for user-centered HIT development. METHODS Based on our experience, we established an integrated approach and rigorous process for HIT development that leverages design thinking and lean and agile strategies in a pragmatic way while preserving methodological integrity in support of academic research goals. RESULTS A four-phased pragmatic process model was developed for user-centered digital development in HIT. CONCLUSIONS The model for user-centered HIT development that we developed is the culmination of diverse innovation projects and represents a multiphased, high-fidelity process for making more creative, flexible, efficient, and effective tools. This model is a critical step in building a rigorous approach to HIT design that incorporates a multidisciplinary, pragmatic perspective combined with academic research practices and state-of-the-art approaches to digital product development to meet the unique needs of health care.

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