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The Heart Health Risks Of Being A Couch Potato

We’ve all made the excuses: You can’t face the drive to the gym, you’re too tired at night, getting up in the morning is a chore, or it’s too hot or cold outside. So you cozy up on the couch in front of the television. If you’re a couch potato, you’re a gambler — with your life.

Unfortunately you’ll need a big sofa because you’re not the only one whose heart isn’t in physical activity. About 60 percent of adults in the U.S. are not getting the exercise they need, according to a report from the U.S. Surgeon General.

It’s time to get up and face — or better yet, dance to — the music! Here are a few facts that may get you moving for your heart’s sake. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*

Health Highlights From The New Media Academic Summit

I recently spoke at the panel on transparency at Edelman’s New Media Academic Summit. Ben Boyd was the moderator and Ellen Miller from the Sunlight Foundation was my fellow panelist.

Reviewing some of the #nmas10 tweets from the audience, I figured I should provide some links for the anecdotes I mentioned:

Special thanks to Dr. Val Jones of Better Health for getting me involved with this group.

*This blog post was originally published at Blogborygmi*

Doctor To Patient: “Do You Text And Drive?”

It’s time to ask patients whether they text and drive. An important perspective piece from the New England Journal of Medicine urges doctors to include that question during preventive health exams. The data surrounding texting and driving is grim:

Although there are many possible distractions for drivers, more than 275 million Americans own cell phones, and 81% of them talk on those phones while driving. The adverse consequences have reached epidemic proportions. Current data suggest that each year, at least 1.6 million traffic accidents (28% of all crashes) in the United States are caused by drivers talking on cell phones or texting. Talking on the phone causes many more accidents than texting, simply because millions more drivers talk than text; moreover, using a hands-free device does not make talking on the phone any safer.

The author of the piece, Amy Ship from Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, says that doctors should update traditional preventive questions to keep up with the times.  The simple question, “Do you text while you drive?” is a way to start this important conversation. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

Can At-Home Telemonitoring Improve Care And Reimbursement?

Dr. John D. Halamka, Chief Information Officer of both Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, has a review up on his “Life as a Healthcare CIO” blog of the Withings Wi-Fi Scale.

The device can now upload readings into Google Health, and Dr. Halamka thinks similar capabilities in other at-home medical devices can be used to evaluate alternative quality contracts that reimburse clinics based on improvement in preventive care.

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

Massachusetts: A Foreshadow For Healthcare Reform?

Paul Levy, President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, suggests we watch Massachusetts for what might be coming with healthcare reform:

Things are playing out just as one might predict in the Massachusetts small business and individual insurance market. The Insurance Commissioner turned down proposed rate increases, the state’s insurers appealed to the courts, and now they can’t write policies.

Perhaps more concerning is what Dennis Byron, a commenter on Mr. Levy’s blog, says about insurance exchanges:

I care because I am one of those who has been cancelled by my insurer (Fallon), solely, I believe, because I am an individual, have been told to go to the exchange, but the exchange does not work. This is a perfect example of why you don’t want the guys that run the registry running your healthcare.

If nothing else, this exposes the risks inherent to mandating unproven policy initiatives on a national scale that have yet to be even worked out in a single state.

*Sigh*

-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.

*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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