Quarterly Letters: A Response to Stories about Wait Times for Medical Procedures

Improving Wait Times to Care for Individuals with Multimorbidities and Complex Conditions Using Value Stream Mapping

Background Recognizing the significant impact of wait times for care for individuals with complex chronic conditions, we applied a LEAN methodology, namely – an adaptation of Value Stream Mapping (VSM) to meet the needs of people with multiple chronic conditions and to improve wait times without additional resources or funding.   Methods Over an 18-month time period, staff applied a patient-cen...

Telling stories about stories.

I want to tell you a story. This is a story about stories. As in any good story, we’re going to wander down a few storied paths. One of the paths leads back to 3 award-winning stories.* Remarkable stories by remarkable physicians who take seriously the power of stories—who have written powerful stories. Another path is about the importance of stories for human health and well-being from the per...

Unacceptable emergency wait times.

Performing all major surgical procedures robotically will prolong wait times for surgery

This article aimed to assess the burden of scheduling major urologic oncology procedures if all cases were performed robotically and to determine whether this would increase the time a patient would have to wait for surgery. We retrospectively determined the number of prostatectomies, radical nephrectomies, partial nephrectomies, and cystectomies at a single institution for one calendar year. A...

A Comparative Study on Medical and Nursing Students Viewpoints about Telemedicine Procedures Development

Background and Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the viewpoints of medical and nursing students on development of telemedicine procedures at Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. Ninety medical students and 55 nursing students were selected using stratified random sampling in the first semester of 2011-2012. The studen...