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Extended military deployments to combat areas increase stress, anxiety and depression among families

Kevin

Conditions and Diseases

January 26, 2010

Originally published in MedPage Today

by John Gever, MedPage Today Senior Editor

The longer that U.S. Army soldiers spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, the greater the likelihood that their wives would seek psychiatric treatment, researchers said.

The risk that a woman would receive a new mental illness diagnosis during her husband’s deployment was significantly higher when he was overseas for a year …

10 ways United States health reform may fail

Richard Reece, MD

Health Policy

January 26, 2010

One, develop a plan that the presently privately insured Americans, estimated at 200 million, pay more in premiums, and to just make sure you succeed, immediately starting raising taxes by $400 billion over the next decade.

Two, alienate those over 65, the most dependable voting bloc, by promising to cut Medicare by $500 billion over the next ten years with the false promise, which you know you cannot …

10 cost effective preventive medicine services

Dr. Charles

Conditions and Diseases

January 25, 2010

Here are the top 10 preventive services. These items were chosen by the National Commission on Prevention Priorities, and highlight those preventive services including immunizations, screenings, preventive medications, and counseling that give “the most bang for the buck.”

For an in depth discussion of methods and results, read Am J Prev Med 2006;31(1):52–61

Discuss Daily Aspirin Use

This counseling does not mean everyone should take aspirin to prevent heart attack and stroke, but …

Can morphine help prevent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?

Kevin

Medications

January 25, 2010

Originally posted in MedPage Today

by Todd Neale, MedPage Today Staff Writer

The use of morphine may prevent the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in military personnel injured in combat, an observational study showed.

Those who received the drug during resuscitation or trauma care were about half as likely to later develop PTSD (OR 0.47, P<0.001), according to Troy Lisa Holbrook, PhD, …

Why the Mayo Clinic is refusing to see Medicare patients

Toni Brayer, MD

Health Policy

January 25, 2010

Medicare, the government insurance company for everyone over age 65 (and for the disabled), pays fees to primary care physicians that guarantee bankruptcy.

Additionally, 70 percent of hospitals in the United States lose money on Medicare patients. That’s right, for every patient over age 65, it costs the hospital more to deliver care than the government reimburses. That is why Mayo Clinic has said it will not accept Medicare payments for …

How television can shorten your life

Kevin

Conditions and Diseases

January 24, 2010

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Todd Neale, MedPage Today Staff Writer

Too much television watching could be shortening lifespans, a study of Australian adults showed.

Aussies who reported watching four or more hours of TV a day were 46% more likely to die during a 6.6-year period than those who watched less than two hours a day, according to David Dunstan, PhD, of Monash University in Melbourne, and colleagues.

Why there needs to be a national healthcare information database

Edward Pullen, MD

Health Technology

January 24, 2010

The majority of Americans have a great deal of personal health information in their physician’s medical record. Many of these physicians have an electronic healthcare record (EHR) to store this information.

Unless you are in an integrated healthcare system, and most Americans are not, this information is just not available to you or any physician seeing you who does not belong to the same physician group as your primary physician. Even …

When are stroke patients more likely to receive clot busting drugs?

Kevin

Medications

January 23, 2010

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Todd Neale, MedPage Today Staff Writer

Patients suffering an acute ischemic stroke are about 20% more likely to receive clot-busting therapy with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) if they arrive at the hospital on the weekend, a retrospective study showed.

However, there was no difference in rates of inhospital mortality based on the time of admission, Abby …

Why touchscreen computers are the future for electronic medical records

Dr. Martin Young

Health Technology

January 23, 2010

As I explore the latest EMR offerings, and read all the blogs and media releases for and against EMRs, I am forced to wonder, “Has anybody ever asked us doctors what we either want or need?”

Too often it seems the requirements of EMR’s are more suited to organizations, systems, and number-crunchers than to either doctors or our patients. I understand that the data is important, but why should the adaptation …

Talking to a patient, without a translator, in mutual non-native languages

Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD

Patient

January 22, 2010

“Je m’a…,” I stuttered to Aristede Mezondes, the serious young man in a grey wool overcoat, standing before me with ramrod posture. “Je m’appelle Dr. Ofri.”

There. I’d gotten it out.

The language of Descartes, Voltaire, and Balzac had clearly vacated my cortex. Despite those years of French classes and one brief visit to Paris, “Je m’appelle” was the best I could come up with. And even that was a struggle. Pushed …

Teaching doctors the art of negotiation

Kevin

Physician

January 22, 2010

Originally posted in HCPLive.com

by Jeff Brown, MD

When I am in a civilian situation and someone asks me what I do, if I am feeling whimsical, I sometimes answer “I’m in sales.”

Think about it – almost all of our professional interchanges can be seen as: 1) trying to talk someone out of doing something, like smoking, or 2) trying to talk someone into something, like exercising. Using a broader brush, you …

Read more…

Teaching doctors the art of negotiation

iPhone medical apps for your iPod Touch

Iltifat Husain, MD

Health Technology

January 22, 2010

We’ve gotten some questions from our readers on iMedicalApps.com asking if medical applications in the App Store will work just as well on the iPod touch as they do on the iPhone.

The short answer to this question is, yes, they will. The long answer is you should know some key differences.

Of the approximately 60 million total iPhone and …

Read more…

iPhone medical apps for your iPod Touch

Did the government get it right on EHR certification?

Glenn Laffel, MD, PhD

Health Technology

January 22, 2010

Last week, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released criteria that will be used to certify EHRs as appropriate support tools for providers who want to qualify for Bonanza Days.

The criteria are subject to a 60-day comment period before being finalized.

I congratulate ONC on its elegant piece of rule making. Its so-called Interim Final Rule (IFR) provides a foundation that can support years of progress …

Primary care needs a face lift, and a better agent

Jennifer Adaeze Anyaegbunam

Physician

January 21, 2010

General medicine is not sexy. Less than a fourth of the doctors in the United States are currently primary care providers like Pediatricians, Ob/Gyns, and Internists. According to a recent study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, only 2% of medical students intend on pursuing a career in general internal medicine. So when health-care reform becomes a reality, and the 46 million uninsured men, women, and children …

Primary care doctors should discuss organ donation with patients

Kevin

Conditions and Diseases

January 21, 2010

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Charles Bankhead, MedPage Today Staff Writer

Primary care physicians rarely discuss organ donation with patients, even though most of the doctors believe organ donation is within the scope of their practice, a survey of primary care physicians showed.

Fewer than 4% of physicians said they discussed organ donation with patients, compared with 30% who discussed end-of-life issues. …

How ideology is shaping health care reform

Richard Reece, MD

Health Policy

January 21, 2010

I’m an ideological pragmatist. I believe in what works and what suits the temperament of American people, rather than what is politically correct or what passes some moral litmus test.

Whatever reform measure passes, it will be a public-private mix and will superimpose more government regulations on our private system. It will have uneven effects. It will cost more than the status quo. And it will expose the reality, that when …

How to prevent diabetes with diet and exercise

Erin Marcus, MD

Conditions and Diseases

January 20, 2010

By all accounts, Frances Vasquez ought to be a diabetic. Raised on a diet of fried steak, fried pork chops and lots of rice, her father, mother, and two sisters suffered from the disease. At age 47, Frances was overweight and already experiencing high blood sugar.

But over the past 11 years, Frances has been able to avoid diabetes, and her sugars are now normal. By participating in a ground-breaking, government-funded …

Why scaring patients to quit smoking may not be effective

Kevin

Physician

January 20, 2010

Originally published in MedPage Today

by Crystal Phend, MedPage Today Senior Staff Writer

Telling people about the benefits of quitting is more likely to help smokers break the habit than scaring them with the dangers of continuing, researchers found.

Callers to a tobacco quitline were nearly twice as likely to stop in the short term when they got positive messages rather than …

Did Martha Coakley kill health reform, and what Senator Scott Brown means for healthcare

Kevin

Health Policy

January 20, 2010

In case you haven’t heard, in a stunning result in yesterday’s special election in Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown won the Senate seat previously occupied by the late Edward Kennedy.

Needless to say, pundits are going crazy analyzing the results, and its implications on health reform. I’ll leave the political commentary to them, but I’ll comment on what this means for health reform’s future.

In essence, what turned into a 95% likelihood …

A doctor writes about his first day in Haiti

Kevin

Physician

January 19, 2010

by Jonathan Crocker, MD

From Cange, Central Plateau
Haiti
01-18-10

We arrived at Cange, in the Central Plateau, the heart of operations for Partners In Health/Zamni Lasante, yesterday. As we expected, things are incredibly busy. People are still arriving from Port au Prince. Those who have been fortunate enough to survive their injuries this long are now running into complications of wound infections, some of which have turned septic, and venous blood clots (from …

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