Michael Laposata, MD, PhD, serves as Professor and Chairman for the Department of Pathology at The University of Texas Medical Branch.
On May 2nd, Dr. Laposata will give a presentation on "Clinical Leadership and Quality at the University of Texas Medical Branch" at Becker's Health IT + Clinical Leadership + Pharmacy conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place May 2-4, 2019 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Dr. Laposata's session, click here.
Question: What do innovators/entrepreneurs from outside healthcare need to better understand about hospital and health system leaders?
Michael Laposata: The most important things to understand are the strengths and weaknesses of physicians and nonphysician health system leaders. The physician has intimate knowledge about the likely use of an innovation because he or she has struggled with some aspect of diagnosis or treatment. The strength of the nonphysician health system leaders is the operational and financial knowledge about bringing an innovation forward. The challenge for innovators is that neither group is strong in both areas. Physicians may see a potential solution that is associated with multiple major obstacles to implementation, that are immediately visible to a nonphysician health system leader. Health system leaders who are not doctors often have essential solutions in their own institutions, but failed to recognize their clinical impact, especially if they are novel. Currently, the relationship between physicians and nonphysician health system leaders is often adversarial. This is the dilemma for innovators and entrepreneurs from outside healthcare!
Q: What one strategic initiative will demand the most of your time and energy in 2019?
ML: Diagnostic testing is more complicated and more expensive than ever. There are many thousands of laboratory tests and most physicians only know how to interpret and understand the clinical importance of less than 100. Much of the waste in healthcare is related to delayed testing to establish a diagnosis resulting in long lengths of stay and delays until effective treatment. My one major strategic initiative is associated with dramatically increasing expert input, for virtually anything a patient may have, wherever a patient may be, with payment to the expert. This innovation of bringing experts to everyone’s bedside is called the diagnostic management team, which is now present in a number of institutions across the United States.
Q: Tell us about the last meaningful interaction you had with a patient.
ML: How about this one – which is recurrent. A baby has a subdural hematoma. The father of the child is accused of intentionally injuring the baby, which he vigorously denies. Our team has evaluated the child and demonstrated that the child suffers from a bleeding disorder which would allow the blood on top of the brain to have occurred without trauma. I have had many discussions in such cases with the father, the attorneys, and other physicians who have made a misdiagnosis of child abuse because the child actually has a bleeding disorder which was unrecognized by the pediatrician.