Here are some of the more interesting comments readers have left recently.
1. Anonymous on whether IV sedation is overused:
I think it depends on the patient and on the procedure. For my colonoscopy, I did prefer the sedation. It wasn’t something that I cared to remember.
But I’ve also had a core needle biopsy of an abdominal tumor. The tumor was right …
7 top medical comments, May 17th, 2009
Here are some of the more interesting comments readers have left recently.
1. Carla Kakutani on the lack of primary care access in Massachusetts:
So we have a chicken and egg problem. Do we wait health care reform until we have revived US primary care, or is that even possible without health care reform to create the disruption needed to change our entrenched fee-for-service, procedure-happy payment …
6 top medical comments, May 3rd, 2009
The following is a reader take, in response to a post on whether patients should own their medical records, by an anonymous nurse.
Dear Dr. Pho,
I wish to respond to your position on patient access to their medical records both as a patient and a nurse.
If a doctor or other health professional believes their documentation would be inappropriate or too sensitive for …
Reader take: Patients should be allowed to access their entire medical record
Join 100,000+ subscribers. Free, and one click to unsubscribe.
The following is a reader take from the staff at HealthHarbor.
We had a chance to attend the HIMSS conference two weeks ago. HIMSS is healthcare’s premier annual tech expo, and was in Chicago this year. The undeniable theme of this year’s conference was the anticipated expansion of Health Information Technology (HIT) via the Economic Recovery Act. …
HealthHarbor: Health IT stimulus leads to more questions than answers
Here are some of the more interesting comments readers have left recently.
1. Manalive on quality measures:
It is almost always a leap of faith to apply evidence-based guidelines to the frail elderly, to patients with many medical problems, to alcoholics, to the poorly insured — in short, to a large percentage of my practice. Accordingly, I have been on the wrong end of too many …
6 top medical comments, April 19th 2009
Here are some of the more interesting comments readers have left recently.
1. Dr. Gwenn on limited health literacy:
For us to do a better job with patients and teach them to be better advocates for themselves, we need more time – plain and simple. At the same time, patients need more community supports to understand the complex health world and build the skills they need …
5 top medical comments, April 12th 2009
It’s a well known phenomenon that hospitalists are taking over inpatient medicine.
And no wonder, the payment system strongly discourages newly minted doctors to practice outpatient medicine, and the demand that hospitals have for inpatient physicians is surging at an unprecedented rate.
It’s a good time to be a hospitalist, but, as this reader writes to me, that may lead to an increasingly variability in the quality …
Most hospitalists are good, but some, like these ones, aren’t
More hospitals are resorting to so-called “dayhawk” radiology services to read their x-rays.
It’s modeled after the “nighthawk” model, where radiologists (via Shadowfax), in some cases as far away as India, remotely read films in the middle of the night.
Now, the phenomenon is happening during business hours as well, which according to radiologist Giles W. L. Boland, means that “some radiologists can no longer assume long-term …
Nighthawks, dayhawks, and the demise of the American radiologist
Would Natasha Richardson be alive today if she had gone skiing in the United States instead?
I don’t think it would have made a difference.
To recap the tragedy, Ms. Richardson died from an epidural bleed, after she fell while skiing. Her presentation was somewhat classic, with the well-described “lucid” period before she deteriorated.
According to Canada’s Globe and Mail, “ambulance workers were not …
Did the Canadian health system fail Natasha Richardson?
Tragic news this morning regarding actress Natasha Richardson, who reportedly, suffered a head injury during a ski lesson in Canada.
According to reports, she fell on a beginner’s ski hill, and did not hit anyone or anything during the fall. There was no obvious sign of injury, and in fact, she was “was walking around and feeling fine for an hour after her accident.”
Things then …
Mariana Bridi da Costa, a 20-year old Brazilian model, tragically died early Saturday morning from Pseudomonas aeruginosa urosepsis.
How can this happen?
Miss Bridi da Costa initially presented on December 30th, and was diagnosed with kidney stones. An ultrasound, plain film, or CT scan likely would have been done to confirm the diagnosis. I assume that a urinalysis was also performed, and if …
The following op-ed was published on January 14th, 2009 in the USA Today.
Every patient’s worst nightmare is going to the hospital for a procedure only to have a surgical instrument left in his body, the wrong limb or organ operated on or, worse, dying from a medical mistake. These types of mistakes should never happen.
So when Medicare recently instituted a plan to deny hospital payments for …
