Study: Hospital-physician relations strained

Hospital-physician partnerships just ain't what they used to be. With physicians investing in competing entities like ambulatory surgical centers and refusing to take emergency department call without generous extras, hospital administrators are getting exasperated with them. And with independent physicians losing out to hospitalists, and in some cases, seldom visiting the hospital at all, many don't get a warm fuzzy feeling about their local hospital administrators either. Unfortunately, this means that at a time when cooperation is more important than ever--for example, in working on branding initiatives in service lines such as heart, cancer and orthopedic/spine centers--it's harder than ever to cooperate, notes a new Health Affairs paper.  This can't continue if the two sides hope to meet new patient safety and quality goals. However, it's possible to turn the tide in several ways, including hospital-physician joint ventures and hospital employment of physicians, researchers suggest.

For more background on these issues:
- read this Health Affairs article