Swensen, Stephen J.

Abstract As health care organizations in the United States move toward recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, physicians and clinical faculty are experiencing occupational burnout and various manifestations of distress. To mitigate these challenges, health care organizations must optimize the work environment and provide support for individual clinicians using a variety of approaches, including mentoring, group-based peer support, individual peer support, coaching, and psychotherapy. While often conflated, each of these approaches offers distinct benefits. Mentoring is a longitudinal 1-on-1 relationship, typically focused on career development, usually with an experienced professional guiding a junior professional. Group-based peer support involves regular, longitudinal meetings of health professionals to discuss meaningful topics, provide mutual support to one another, and foster community. Individual peer support involves training peers to provide timely 1-on-1 support for a distressed colleague dealing with adverse clinical events or other professional challenges. Coaching involves a certified professional helping an individual identify their values and priorities and consider changes that would allow them to adhere to these more fully, and providing longitudinal support that fosters accountability for action. Individual psychotherapy is a longitudinal, short- or long-term professional relationship during which specific therapeutic interventions are delivered by a licensed mental health professional. When distress is severe, this is the best approach. Although some overlap exists, these approaches are distinct and complementary. Individuals may use different methods at different career stages and for different challenges. Organizations seeking to address a specific need should consider which approach is most suitable. Over time, a portfolio of offerings is typically needed to holistically address the diverse needs of clinicians. A stepped care model using a population health approach may be a cost-effective way to promote mental health and prevent occupational distress and general psychiatric symptoms.

The majority of quality measures used to assess providers and hospitals are based on easily obtained data, focused on a few dimensions of quality, and developed mainly for primary/community care and population health. While this approach supports efforts focused on addressing the triple aim of health care, many current quality report cards and assessments do not reflect the breadth or complexity of many referral center practices. In this article, the authors highlight the differences between population health efforts and referral care and address issues related to value measurement and performance assessment. They discuss why measures may need to differ across the three levels of care (primary/community care, secondary care, complex care) and illustrate the need for further risk adjustment to eliminate referral bias. With continued movement toward value-based purchasing, performance measures and reimbursement schemes need to reflect the increased level of intensity required to provide complex care. The authors propose a framework to operationalize value measurement and payment for specialty care, and they make specific recommendations to improve performance measurement for complex patients. Implementing such a framework to differentiate performance measures by level of care involves coordinated efforts to change both policy and operational platforms. An essential component of this framework is a new model that defines the characteristics of patients who require complex care and standardizes metrics that incorporate those definitions.

Abstract Studies suggest that screening with spiral computed tomography can detect lung cancers at a smaller size and earlier stage than chest radiography can. To evaluate low-radiation-dose spiral computed tomography and sputum cytology in screening for lung cancer, we enrolled 1,520 individuals aged 50 yr or older who had smoked 20 pack-years or more in a prospective cohort study. One year after baseline scanning, 2,244 uncalcified lung nodules were identified in 1,000 participants (66%). Twenty-five cases of lung cancer were diagnosed (22 prevalence, 3 incidence). Computed tomography alone detected 23 cases; sputum cytology alone detected 2 cases. Cell types were: squamous cell, 6; adenocarcinoma or bronchioalveolar, 15; large cell, 1; small cell, 3. Twenty-two patients underwent curative surgical resection. Seven benign nodules were resected. The mean size of the non-small cell cancers detected by computed tomography was 17 mm (median, 13 mm). The postsurgical stage was IA, 13; IB, 1; IIA, 5; IIB, 1; IIIA, 2; limited, 3. Twelve (57%) of the 21 non-small cell cancers detected by computed tomography were stage IA at diagnosis. Computed tomography can detect early-stage lung cancers. The rate of benign nodule detection is high.

External groups requiring measures now include public and private payers, regulators, accreditors and others that certify performance levels for consumers, patients and payers. Although benefits have accrued from the growth in quality measurement, the recent explosion in the number of measures threatens to shift resources from improving quality to cover a plethora of quality-performance metrics that may have a limited impact on the things that patients and payers want and need (ie, better outcomes, better care, and lower per capita costs). Here we propose a policy that quality measurement should be: balanced to meet the need of end users to judge quality and cost performance and the need of providers to continuously improve the quality, outcomes and costs of their services; and parsimonious to measure quality, outcomes and costs with appropriate metrics that are selected based on end-user needs.

Abstract Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a strong risk factor for lung cancer. Published studies about variations of genes encoding glutathione metabolism, DNA repair, and inflammatory response pathways in susceptibility to COPD were inconclusive. We evaluated 470 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) from 56 genes of these three pathways in 620 cases and 893 controls to identify susceptibility markers for COPD risk, using existing resources. We assessed SNP- and gene-level effects adjusting for sex, age, and smoking status. Differential genetic effects on disease risk with and without lung cancer were also assessed; cumulative risk models were established. Twenty-one SNPs were found to be significantly associated with risk of COPD (P < 0.01); gene-based analyses confirmed two genes (GCLC and GSS) and identified three additional genes (GSTO2, ERCC1, and RRM1). Carrying 12 high-risk alleles may increase risk by 2.7-fold; eight SNPs altered COPD risk without lung cancer by 3.1-fold and 4 SNPs altered the risk with lung cancer by 2.3-fold. Our findings indicate that multiple genetic variations in the three selected pathways contribute to COPD risk through GCLC, GSS, GSTO2, ERCC1, and RRM1 genes. Functional studies are needed to elucidate the mechanisms of these genes in the development of COPD, lung cancer, or both. Cancer Prev Res; 5(3); 365–73. ©2011 AACR.