Adding a Layer to the Regular Routine

As I write this, we continue to work through the devastating global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, with surges in positivity rates across America and around the world. I’d like to thank all of you who are persevering in your support for your organizations and the patients we serve.

These ongoing challenges represent another layer of work in addition to all of the “routine” things that physician leaders do to advance care for their patients, hospitals, organizations, and communities. We want to ensure that we are providing you with important articles that address the leadership challenges associated with COVID-19 as well as resources to help you address the everyday challenges you face.

Hence, this issue has a lot packed into it. Many of the articles address contemporary issues related to the efficiency of care — something we struggle with each day and something made even more acute by the longer lengths of stay of our patients experiencing COVID-19. I have heard from many about the challenges they experience and am hopeful that these papers may help.

A discussion article examines the importance of the case management department and how physician leaders can use their knowledge and skills to support hospital or system objectives. This article describes how a high-functioning case management department can create a positive trend in organizational metrics and how these metrics can then demonstrate the effectiveness of the organization to meet regulatory compliance, improved revenue, cost control, and avoidance of penalties tied to readmissions and patient satisfaction. Another discussion article examines how physician leaders can ensure that caregiver wellbeing is a priority during a crisis and that caregivers’ concerns can promote positive change.

In addition, we include two research articles. One article describes the impact of a specific rounding model and an electronic medical record-driven discharge readiness tool to improve hospital inpatient throughput. The authors demonstrate that their visual discharge readiness tool promoted improvements in communication, collaboration, and coordination of care among healthcare team members, facilitating discharges and length of stay improvements. The second article examines patient-specific factors and cost in relation to postoperative acute care unit length of stay for patients undergoing major urologic procedures.

Finally, you will find a discussion article that examines the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in healthcare and how these tools help account for clinical variation, achieve human level performance, reduce costs, and increase the quality of care without displacing the essential human touch.

As the official journal of the American Association for Physician Leaders, the Physician Leadership Journal provides a platform for you to share your research with members throughout the world. Now is the time to use this platform to help inspire change in healthcare and to improve the way we deliver care to the patients, families, and communities we serve.

Send me your thoughts at editor@physicianleaders.org. We would enjoy hearing stories about relevance of mentorship and the methods you use to ensure that you and your team are well cared for in our demanding careers.