Quality-of-care concerns add to doctors’ stress

My lede:

As many as a third of doctors are dissatisfied with their work, stressed and burned out by increasing workloads and declining pay. But physicians’ well-being also is affected by the quality of care their practices deliver, according to a new study.

The results of a statewide survey of nearly 1,900 Massachusetts doctors published in the August Medical Care showed that 31% felt stressed, 27% were dissatisfied with their work and 17% felt isolated from colleagues. Doctors who said their practices had quality problems were more likely to feel stressed.

The whole shebang.

75% of discharge summaries don’t mention pending test results

My lede:

Patients are especially vulnerable to harmful medical mix-ups when they leave the hospital. Doctors and hospitals have devoted much attention in recent years to improving the process of reconciling the medications patients were taking before they arrived with what they should take after discharge.

New research highlights another continuity-of-care challenge: following up on tests ordered in the hospital. Four in 10 patients are discharged with test results pending, and about 9% of those tests should lead to a change in the patient’s care.

But how can primary care doctors check up on these tests if they do not know about them?

The whole shebang.