July 12th, 2010 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Communication Skills, Dedicated Caregivers, Doctor-Nurse Relationship, Dr. Toni Brayer, General Medicine, Healthcare Outcomes, Healthcare reform, Hospital Errors, Hospital Medicine, KevinMD, Medical Error Reduction, Medication Errors, Medicine Is A Team Sport, Multidisciplinary Approach, Nurse-Doctor Communication, Patient Safety, Poor Medical Staff Communication, Quality Patient Care, Teamwork In Medicine, U.S. Healthcare System, Working Together In Healthcare
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From KevinMD’s medical blog, guest post by Toni Brayer, M.D., shares a story where a team approach in medicine is critical for quality patient care.
Dr. Brayer writes:
“Medicine is a team sport and it is only when the team is humming and everyone is working together that patients can have good outcomes. Hospital errors, medication errors, poor communication between doctors and nurses are prevented by adherence to protocols that everyone follows. It takes laser focus, measuring outcomes and a great deal of hard work to ensure everyone is pulling together in a hospital. The fact that these bedside nurses take the time to work on error reduction and patient safety is really amazing. Have you seen how hard nurses work? My hat is off to these dedicated caregivers.”
Dr. Brayer is exactly right when she writes “medicine is a team sport.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
July 12th, 2010 by DrRich in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: E & M Codes, E&M Guidelines, Evaluation and Management, General Medicine, Medicare Billing, Physician Documentation Requirements, Primary Care
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Since the late 1990s, American physicians have labored under a set of tortuous documentation requirements imposed upon them by our government. The E&M guidelines (for “evaluation and management”), apply to the documentation that physicians are now obligated to provide in support of their Medicare billing. The E&M guidelines, first instituted in 1995 and revised in 1997, were part of the Clintons’ great fraud reduction initiative. Ostensibly, the strict documentation requirements reduce the opportunity for fraudulent billing.
While doctors initially railed against the E&M guidelines, they now suffer them in relative silence. The E&M guidelines have become, in fact, just one more hurdle which doctors must navigate as they pick their way through the vast obstacle course that now defines the practice of American medicine. Indeed, younger doctors accept the odious documentation requirements as a matter of course, knowing nothing better, just as children born into the direst third-world slums accept their abject poverty without notable complaint. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*
July 12th, 2010 by AndrewSchorr in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Andrew Schorr, Avandia, Biotech Drugs, Cancer Patients, CLL, CTI, Diabetes Drug, Dr. Richard Pazdur, Drug Effectiveness, Drug Safety, Empowered Patients, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, GlaxoSmithKline, Government Research, GSK, New-Drug Approval, Patient Power, Personalized Medicine, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Pharmacology, Pixantrone, Playing Fair For Patients, Transparency In Medicine
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They have a tough job, those government doctors, scientists, and bureaucrats who are charged with assessing the safety and effectiveness of proposed new medical products. As you know, they rely largely on studies presented by the applicants.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the power to not approve a new drug or product or even pull it off the market. Right now it is considering limiting or pulling GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) diabetes drug, Avandia, because of newly discovered data that it may have caused heart attack in some patients –- data mysteriously not shown in GSK’s own studies. If the drug is pulled it will cost GSK billions of dollars in lost revenue but, from the FDA’s point-of-view, it will be protecting the public. And, after all, there are safer diabetes drugs on the market as alternatives. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Andrew's Blog*
July 12th, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
Tags: Care Coordination, Co-Payments, Dual Eligibles, Early Retirees, FDA, Follow-On Biologics, Food and Drug Administration, Gary Schwitzer, Health Insurance Premiums, Healthcare Changes, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare reform, HealthNewsReview.org, Kaiser Health News, Lesser-Known Provisions, Low-Income Adults, Mammograms, Medicaid Coverage, Mid-Term Elections, Preventive Medicine, Preventive Services, U.S. Healthcare System, Under-The-Radar
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Kaiser Health News proves its value once again with an under-the-radar story covering some items you won’t see in many other news sources. An excerpt:
“…several lesser-known provisions also take effect in coming months that could have a lasting impact on the nation’s health care system.
These provisions include eliminating patients’ co-payments for certain preventive services such as mammograms, giving the government more power to review health insurers’ premium increases and allowing states to expand Medicaid coverage to low-income adults without children.
While these changes might not have gotten at lot of attention, they could help build support for the law in the run-up to the contentious mid-term elections.”
Their list:
• Prevention For Less
• Knowing Which Treatments Work Best
• Helping Cover Early Retirees’ Health Costs
• Keeping Tabs on Health Insurance Premiums
• Expanded Medicaid Coverage
• Care Coordination for ‘Dual Eligibles’
• FDA Approval For ‘Follow-On Biologics’
Read the full story at the link above for details.
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
July 12th, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Ad-Driven Drug Requests, Banning Drug Ads, Brand Name Prescription Drugs, Consumer Drug Marketing, Direct-To-Consumer Drug Advertising, Dr. Ray Fabius, Drug Ads, Family Medicine, General Medicine, Influence On Patients, Internal Medicine, National Public Radio, NPR, Pharmaceutical Companies, Pharmaceutical Industry, Pharmacology, Primary Care, Thomson Reuters
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How effective is direct-to-consumer drug advertising? Some think that drug ads should be banned altogether, saying that it encourages patients to ask their doctors for expensive, brand name prescription drugs. It turns out their fears may be overblown.
NPR’s Shots blogs about a recent study looking at the effectiveness of these ads. The numbers, for the pharmaceutical companies anyways, are not encouraging. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
