EP323: A Short Take on Digital Tools Purporting to Maximize Throughput, With Arshad Rahim, MD, MBA, FACP, of Mount Sinai Health System

In Episode 323, Stacey Richter talks with Arshad Rahim, MD, MBA, FACP, senior medical director of population health at Mount Sinai, about the mismatched language around "throughput" — and what happens to patient care and physician burnout when digital tools optimize for volume over relationships.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✅ Why "throughput" and "quality time with patients" describe the same trade-off using different language

✅ How throughput-maximizing digital tools often mask a fee-for-service agenda behind a patient-care mission statement

✅ When and how throughput negatively affects diagnostic accuracy and patient outcomes

✅ What patients actually want and need from a health care interaction

✅ What doctors need from their organizations to sustain a high level of care

WHY THIS MATTERS

Stakeholders on opposite sides of the throughput debate often talk past each other because they're using different vocabulary for the same underlying trade-off, and vague compromises like "quality time while maximizing throughput" produce no real change. Tech vendors selling throughput-boosting tools often pitch patient-care missions on their first slide and speed or billing codes on their second — and real health improvement requires confronting, head-on, that quality time with patients means less throughput, not more.

=== LINKS ===

🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

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00:00 Introduction.

07:37 When does throughput negatively affect patient care?

08:55 Why does diagnostic inaccuracy become a problem with throughput?

09:27 Do population health outcomes decline with less throughput?

10:20 "The way you can also be most financially successful is by taking care of sicker patients."

10:53 What do patients actually want and need?

11:55 "The emotionality in a health care interaction is always there … [when] you're focused on throughput, you can definitely lose the healing and calming presence."

14:18 What do doctors need from their organizations to sustain a high level of care?

15:59 "The actions vary across the spectrum from very supportive to not very supportive at all."

17:02 "There definitely is a challenge of competitive pay."