by Jeff Brandt
Verizon, Motorola, and Google, along with 9 other cell phone manufactures and countless world carriers, have teamed up to provide a smartphone with the power to deliver useful applications for medicine: the Verizon “Droid” smartphone, based on the Google Android operating system (OS).
The Droid’s processor is the same processor that powers the iPhone. The main reasons this …
Google Android versus the iPhone for medical apps
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Todd Neale, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Just over half — 54% — of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) cases in southwest England occurred when the baby was co-sleeping in the same bed as a parent, a case-control study showed.
That compares with 20% of infants among randomly selected families and controls deemed to be at high …
Will co-sleeping with your infant increase the risk of SIDS?
If you want to get insights into the problems of our health care system, look at a mural by Washington DC resident Regina Holliday.
Holliday is a 37-year old mother of two and an art teacher. Last summer, her husband, Fred, died from kidney cancer at the age of 39. The Hollidays’ experience is a case study in …
What health reform can learn from Regina Holliday
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Peggy Peck, MedPage Today Executive Editor
Men who opt for minimally invasive prostate surgery — often with a helping hand from a robot — are twice as likely to have genitourinary complications as men who have a traditional prostatectomy.
That finding is especially troubling because the use of robotic-assisted minimally invasive prostatectomy has increased exponentially in …
Does robotic surgery for prostate cancer help patients?
Dr. Paul Grundy is on a mission — a mission to promote the patient-centered medical home model that he has been instrumental in developing and rolling out, in his dual role as Director of Healthcare, Technology and Strategic initiatives for IBM Global Wellbeing Services and Health Benefits, and President of the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative.
I had the opportunity to speak with him last month (here’s the transcript and …
How the patient-centered medical home can improve our health care system
by Daniel A. Graubert, MD
Medicine has changed so dramatically since I graduated medical school in the 1980’s, that it is hardly recognizable.
Certainly, there has been an enormous growth in knowledge which is often beneficial, but has often led us down the wrong path. For example, when advanced imaging techniques such as CT scans and MRIs became available, we were able to see the inside of large numbers of patients …
Doctors need to fix the health care system that they had a hand in breaking
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Todd Neale, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Here’s a case where texting may actually improve a teenager’s health: Text message reminders appear to be effective in getting young liver transplant patients to take their immunosuppressive medications, a small study showed.
In 41 patients with a median age of 15, there was a significant improvement in medication compliance …
Texting young liver transplant patients to take their medications
As Bob Dylan sang so long ago, The Times They Are A-Changin’. Some like change; some do not.
Consider these change scenarios:
* One of the important scenes of change for health care providers is the national debate on health care coverage currently playing out in Washington D.C. Some are very vocal in their support. The media covers many of the vocal opponents. Certainly some sort of change will come out of …
Embracing the change coming to our health care system
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Todd Neale, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Most patients who underwent extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) for respiratory failure survived their struggle with pandemic H1N1 flu, according to a study by researchers from Australia and New Zealand.
Of the 68 patients treated with ECMO during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter, 54 were still alive as of Sept. 7, according to …
One way to treat patients with severe H1N1 flu
by Phil Sefton
Writers and editors rushing to meet deadlines know the feeling. The effects of stress, a few too many cups of coffee, and perhaps a candy bar or bag of chips in place of a meal can conspire to make the most steely-nerved wordsmith feel a tad nauseated. Or is it nauseous? And what of that stress, that coffee, that ill-chosen meal replacement—are its effects nauseating or nauseous?
Grammarians with …
Should medical journals use the term nauseous, nauseated, or nauseating?
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Michael Smith, MedPage Today North American Correspondent
The winter wave of the pandemic H1N1 flu hit intensive care units in Australia and New Zealand hard, researchers said, and may offer lessons for doctors bracing for the pandemic’s return to the Northern Hemisphere.
All told, 722 people with confirmed pandemic flu were admitted to one of the …
How H1N1 pandemic flu will affect intensive care units
by Paula Hartman Cohen
Have we overlooked the public health aspect of health care reform?
In the health care reform debate, we’ve heard and read how health care reform will or will not work, what it will or will not cost, and how it will or will not impact each one of us as individuals.
We’ve also heard from those who have great faith in our current system, and sincerely believe we should …
How health care reform can improve public health
Originally published in MedPage Today
by John Gever, MedPage Today Senior Editor
Many African-Americans in California enrolled in health maintenance organizations (HMOs) appear to prefer getting medical treatment in emergency rooms, researchers said.
One-quarter of African-Americans enrolled in Kaiser Permanente or other commercial HMOs in California, who would therefore have a range of treatment options, sought treatment in emergency rooms in 2007, …
Do HMOs drive blacks to the emergency room?
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Take a look at the screen shot below, from Pfizer’s homepage. Believe it or not, I, or anyone else, can now leave comments “on” any website (such as Pfizer.com) using a new tool (currently in beta) from Google, called Sidewiki.
Game-changer? You bet.
While the use of Google’s Sidewiki has ramifications across the entire web, for every type of site or industry, I’m going …
How Google Sidewiki will impact drug company websites
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Todd Neale, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Rapid viral diagnostic testing did not reduce the burden of treating children with respiratory symptoms and fever in the emergency department, according to a Cochrane Review meta-analysis.
Pooling the results of four trials, researchers found a significant reduction in the use of chest radiography (RR 0.77, 95% CI 0.65 to …
Why rapid viral testing for kids with URIs may not help in the ER
by Michael Kirsch, MD
This is a less controversial issue than patients ‘friending’ their doctors on Facebook, which I oppose. Although most physicians’ offices are not e-mailing with patients, perhaps they should. There are several obvious advantages.
* Decompress phone lines, which are suffocating nearly every medical practice in America.
* Relieve patients of the cruel and unusual punishment of languishing on ‘hold’ listening to elevator music or dead air.
* Allow office staff …
Should doctors be paid to e-mail their patients?
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Ed Susman, MedPage Today Contributing Writer
Cruising down the highway in a sleek convertible, with the wind blowing in your hair, may sound like the ideal road trip — but it could harm your hearing, British scientists said.
In a study conducted on the high-speed motorways of the U.K., doctors found that at highway speeds, …
Will riding in a convertible harm your hearing?
Max Baucus’ decision to release his solo album—subtitled the Senate Finance Committee’s proposal on health reform—was timed with the precision of a 4th grade marching band.
Physicians could live with that, but the bill contained gornisht on tort reform and not much more than that on Medicare reimbursement. Upon seeing that, the Long White Coats reacted as if they’d seen earwax on their stethoscopes.
“The feeling of most doctors is that …
Does the Max Baucus health reform plan do enough for doctors?
One of the many questions asked in the health-care reform debate is ‘how do we keep people out of emergency departments in order to reduce costs?’ Simply put, we probably can’t. And 16 years into my emergency medicine practice, I think I know why.
Having taken my own children to the emergency department, even I have been surprised at the charges generated. But we should step back and remember that emergency …
Will more primary care doctors keep patients out of the ER?
Originally published in MedPage Today
by Crystal Phend, MedPage Today Senior Staff Writer
Plumes of virus-laden air shooting out from the masks of patients undergoing noninvasive ventilation could put healthcare workers at increased risk for infectious diseases such as the pandemic H1N1 (swine) flu, researchers said.
A positive-pressure ventilation mask on a simulated patient yielded a jet of exhaled air extending …
Can ventilating patients spread H1N1 flu in hospitals?
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