February 25th, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, True Stories
No Comments »
I came across this picture of my desk just before we went “all in” with our electronic medical record six years ago:
It was a huge amount of work for our staff to organize and box all those old medical records that were sent off to a site unknown. I remember early on when we tried to get some old records after that happened. People just shrugged – no one had a clue how to retrieve them.
But you know what?
Now that we’re farther away from that time, I can’t say that I miss them.
Still, my current desk looks just as disorganized.
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
February 23rd, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Opinion
1 Comment »
Should hospitals send twitter “updates” on patients undergoing complicated catheter ablation procedures using “pre-approved” scripted story lines?
In a far corner of the operating room Thursday, a Web producer and a cardiac expert with St. Vincent’s huddled over a laptop. They chronicled the procedure largely from a script that Oza had signed off on a day earlier.
The procedure uses radio frequencies to scar parts of the heart. The scars block signals sent from a quartet of veins in the left atrium, signals that cause the heart to go haywire. The entire procedure is done using a catheter inserted into a patient’s groin while the patient is anesthetized. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
February 15th, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
No Comments »
It’s an age-old problem, made more complicated by our new era of electronic medical records: optimizing collections in a time of unprecedented price pressures on our health care complex. With the economic downturn and declining government payments for services, everyone in health care is feeling the pinch.
It is no secret that work not billed will ultimately be work not paid. Hospitals and practice managers, adept at business principles, know this. Deep down inside, doctors know this, too. Historically, doctors dictated when they billed their patients, even if it meant waiting over a week to do so. If a doctor was to take a vacation, some of those billings could wait until his return.
Not so any longer. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
February 8th, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, News
1 Comment »
The NBC Today Show aired a segment on the Stereotaxis robotic system for performing catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation using magnetically-steered ablation catheters yesterday (video here). It sure generated a lot of buzz around our hospital. While I share the reporters enthusiasm for all the gadgets and gizmos (what doctor-engineer wouldn’t like such neat toys?) the enthusiasm should be tempered with a strong dose of reality regarding this technology and any atrial fibrillation procedure.
First is the claim that the patient will be cured with “85-90%” certainty. While these success rates have been reported using this technology for the much simpler atrial flutter ablation, this level of success has not been substantiated in meta analyses of atrial fibrillation ablation studies to date: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
February 1st, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
3 Comments »
Now that the health care bill has been soundly defeated by the election of a single individual to the Senate, the Democratic party is fleeing the House and Senate health care overhaul bills like rats from a burning ship. Sadly Republicans, too, are staying silent with (so far) few rushing forth with their alternative solution to counteract the impasse:
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said Democrats were assessing their options on health care. “It’s a timeout,” she said. “The leadership is re-evaluating. They asked us to keep our powder dry.”
Mrs. Feinstein said Congressional leaders should simplify the gigantic health care bill and try to pass parts of it that would be understandable to the public. But she also acknowledged that the odds were long for a far-reaching measure. “I think big, comprehensive bills are very difficult to do in this environment,” she said. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
