A “robot mediator” has reportedly settled a court case for the first time. The underlying dispute concerned unpaid fees allegedly owed for personal counseling sessions.

The City of San Antonio and a local fire union have reportedly reached an agreement to engage in mediation later this month before former Supreme Court of Texas Justice Deborah Hankinson.

University of Kansas School of Law Professor Stephen J. Ware has published “Private Ordering and Commercial Arbitration: Lasting Lessons from Mentschikoff,” Journal of Dispute Resolution, Vol. 2019, No. 1, 2019. 

Texas’s Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio has reversed a trial court’s order denying a financing company’s motion to compel arbitration.

by Holly Hayes A Canadian study, “Assessing Residents’ Communication Skills: Disclosure of an Adverse Event to a Standardized Patient” from the March Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada (JOGC) reported results of a study to assess “residents’ communication skills involving the disclosure of a poor outcome to a standardized patient using a standardized patient encounter, and to compare their performance before and after formal teaching on disclosure”. The study found: It is reassuring that four items were performed very well prior to formal teaching on the subject (“professionalism,” “avoiding barriers,” “speaking at a comfortable rate,” and “using appropriate body language”), the implication being that some of these skills are taught or learned in other ways, either through an innate “bedside manner” or through role-modelling or transfer from other communication skills. We can postulate that the items that were most improved after the educational intervention (“allow time to express feelings,” “introduce the topic,” and “introduce oneself ”) are items that can be taught but are not being taught elsewhere, and are behaviours that are not being modeled. However, an alternative interpretation is that the residents did not demonstrate these skills in an examination setting until they learned that these items were important. The study concluded: “Residents’ performance in disclosure of adverse events improves after formal teaching.” This conclusion is in keeping with a study by the Lucian Leape Institute at the National Patient Safety Foundation; Unmet Needs: Teaching Physicians to Provide Safe Patient Care, 2010. The white paper concluded that “[U.S.] medical schools are not doing an adequate job of facilitating student understanding of basic knowledge and the development of skills required for the provision of safe patient care.” The report urged medical schools to: “teach patient safety as a basic science and ensure that students develop interpersonal and communication skills through experiences working in teams with nursing, pharmacy, and other professional students.” For more on this topic read here and here. Contact us to learn more about our training in healthy conflict engagement where residents and other staff can learn communication skills to discuss adverse events with patients and techniques to improve collaboration in the workplace. Technorati Tags: Healthcare Holly Hayes is a mediator at Karl Bayer, Dispute Resolution Expert where she focuses on mediation of health care disputes. Holly holds a B.A. from Southern Methodist University and a Masters in Health Administration from Duke University. She can be reached at holly@karlbayer.com.

by Holly Hayes According to Healthcare.gov, Medicaid Services (CMS) has committed up to $500 million to examine different models for improving patient care and engagement as well as collaboration with patients to reduce hospital-acquired conditions and improve transition of patients between care providers. The initiative called: Partnership for Patients: Better Care, Lower Costs is a new public-private partnership designed to “help improve the quality, safety and affordability of health care for all Americans”. The Partnership for Patients brings together leaders of major hospitals, employers, health plans, physicians, nurses, and patient advocates along with State and Federal governments in a shared effort to make hospital care safer, more reliable, and less costly. The Partnership will help save 60,000 lives by stopping millions of preventable injuries and complications in patient care over the next three years and has the potential to save up to $35 billion, including up to $10 billion for Medicare. Over the next ten years, it could reduce costs to Medicare by about $50 billion and result in billions more in Medicaid savings. Already, more than 500 hospitals, as well as physicians and nurses groups, consumer groups, and employers, have pledged their commitment to the new initiative. The two goals of this new partnership are: Keep patients from getting injured or sicker. By the end of 2013, preventable hospital-acquired conditions would decrease by 40% compared to 2010. Achieving this goal would mean approximately 1.8 million fewer injuries to patients, with more than 60,000 lives saved over the next three years. Help patients heal without complication. By the end of 2013, preventable complications during a transition from one care setting to another would be decreased so that all hospital readmissions would be reduced by 20% compared to 2010. Achieving this goal would mean more than 1.6 million patients will recover from illness without suffering a preventable complication requiring re-hospitalization within 30 days of discharge. By 2015, a portion of Medicare payments to the majority of hospitals will be linked to whether hospitals are delivering safer care, using information technology effectively and meeting patient needs. Please let us know your thoughts about this new initiative and how collaboration among caregivers, patients and families can improve patient safety and reduce costs. Technorati Tags: Healthcare Holly Hayes is a mediator at Karl Bayer, Dispute Resolution Expert where she focuses on mediation of health care disputes. Holly holds a B.A. from Southern Methodist University and a Masters in Health Administration from Duke University. She can be reached at holly@karlbayer.com.