In a move guaranteed to give physicians the heebie-jeebies, insurance giant WellPoint has inked a deal with restaurant provocateur Zagat to publish reviews of doctors.

The result will be a scorecard covering areas like communication and trust that will be viewable only by WellPoint’s 35 million enrollees.

Nina Zagat told the New York Times that unlike their hotel, spa, nightlife and food reviewers, patients are discouraged from being pithy or witty which hopefully means we’ll be spared reading about how a physician’s “onion-breath” and the “dreary waiting room” made the experience “hit-or-miss.”

Apparently more than 75% of patients given the opportunity are posting comments, and 88% recommend their physician.

That may be, but physicians in Connecticut, California and North Carolina, where the idea is being piloted, have panned the project.

“It is curious that they would go to a company that had no experience in health care to try to find out how good a doctor is,” William Handelman, the president of the Connecticut State Medical Society told the Times. 

To which Arthur Caplan added, “there is no correlation between a doctor being an inept danger to the patient and his popularity.”

The director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania concluded that reviewing physicians is “a recipe for disaster.”

Nina Z. responded that the ratings aren’t intended to be a primary driver in selecting physicians. It’s more like a companion guide to help people pick from a menu of specialists recommended by their primary care doctors.

“One patient might…care more about communications skills,” she told the Times. For another, “having a modern, attractive office may lead to a different choice.”

Only the good lord and a handful of scientists could know what goes through a man’s mind when he spots a bikini-clad woman, and one of the latter just reported at the AAAS meeting that men perceive such women to be objects.

Specifically, a part of the brain associated with tool handling and an intent to carry out tasks shows increased activity and blood flow when men watch images of scantily-clad women, according to Susan Fiske, a psychology professor at Princeton.

Meanwhile in many men, it was like somebody pulled the plug on the part of the brain that analyzes other people’s feelings, thoughts and intentions, she added.

The “study…was focused on the idea that men of a certain age view sex as a highly desirable goal, and if you present them with a provocative woman, then that will tend to prime goal-related responses,” Fiske explained to CNN.

Fiske’s study did not examine how women responded to similarly provocative images of men.

Fiske emphasized that the observed reactions in men were not a matter of conscious control. In fact, the poor guys weren’t necessarily even aware what was going on upstairs.

Hundreds of millions of years before humans developed consciousness, males of all species must have been driven to hook up with what they perceived to be the most fertile females as a means to keep their species in the game, so what’s the big deal?

Men “don’t know the extent to which they’re being influenced,” Fiske explained. “It’s important to recognize the effects.”

Cleveland Clinic and MinuteClinic have struck a deal in which the 2 organizations will integrate their EMR systems to facilitate communication regarding all aspects of care.

It’s for the benefit of the people, they say.

MinuteClinic, a subsidiary of CVS Caremark, has 500 clinics in 25 states making it the nation’s largest provider of retail healthcare. Cleveland Clinic is Cleveland Clinic.

As part of the collaboration, certified providers at affiliated MinuteClinic outlets will be able to access the Cleveland Clinic’s home grown MyChart EMR if necessary while treating a walk-in.

This means the MinuteClinic provider can access the client’s past medical history, health maintenance record, prescriptions and treatments, among other things…assuming patient consent of course.

And conversely, participating MinuteClinics will upload visit information into MyChart.

That’s closed-loop clinico-electronic integration across the spectrum of care, baby!

Or as Cleveland Clinic’s David Bronson explained to HealthCareITNews, “consumers want access, affordability and coordinated care at all levels. This collaboration…addresses those needs while providing quality medical care for acute minor illnesses.”

By the end of this year, 9 MinuteClinics will be wired into the program.

These facilities will be staffed by a nurse practitioner employed by MinuteClinic with clinical back-up courtesy of a Cleveland Clinic-appointed medical director.

“We are pleased to be working with one of the leading medical institutions in the United States,” Chip Phillips, MinuteClinic’s president understated.

“We look forward to collaborating with Cleveland Clinic on a range of patient education and preventive services.”