December 23rd, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: Dartmouth, General Medicine, Lab Reports, Laboratory Data, Medgadget, Medical Technology, TEDMED, Wired Magazine
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Although medical professionals get used to it, the way laboratory data is presented in reports can be quite confusing to the patient. Typically, it is a few columns of black text with poor organization and little guidance to help the patient discern any meaning.
The folks at Wired agreed, and they brought together some Dartmouth physicians and a group of designers to bring a new look to these drab reports. We got to see their refreshing results at TEDMED, but now these prototype reports have been published online:
Link: The Blood Test Gets a Makeover…
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
December 23rd, 2010 by CodeBlog in Better Health Network, Interviews
Tags: Clinical Nursing, CodeBlog, Computerized Charting, Electronic Medical Records, EMR, Healthcare IT, Hospital Computer Systems, Infomatics Nurse, Medical Technology, Nursing Care, Nursing Profession
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Ever wonder how all those hospital systems are created and maintained? (Computer charting, systems to report data to national and state organizations, to name a couple.) Sure, they could hire some IT guy to run them, but everything seems to flow better with a nurse’s touch. After all, we’re the ones using them all the time, right? Jen C, RN, BSN almost MSN gives us a look into the world of nursing informatics.
Jen has been doing this job for two years. She says she “stumbled into it” when she was interviewing for a new job and mentioned that she was starting her master’s in informatics. Although she was hired to be a staff nurse, within four months she was working in informatics.
What do you do all day?
Each day is different. I do a lot of troubleshooting. I go to a lot of meetings. I do system development and upkeep. I listen to the nurses and what their issues are with the various systems. I do education. And I still fill in at the bedside (I’m still a NICU nurse at heart.)
What frustrates you about your job?
Little definition and recognition as to what my job is. I often seem to be a catch-all. I also don’t have a mentor. I’m the only one in my hospital that has formal education in this area and only one or two in the whole hospital. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at code blog - tales of a nurse*
December 22nd, 2010 by Lucy Hornstein, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Opinion, True Stories
Tags: AAFP, American Academy of Family Physicians, Being Happy, Creating Happiness, Dr. Lucy Hornstein, Emotional Well-Being, Family Medicine, General Medicine, Happiness In Life, Happy People, Mental Health, Musings of a Dinosaur, Personal Freedom, Secret To True Happiness, The H Card, To Be Happy
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The most moving speaker at the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) convention I went to in Denver a few months ago was a doctor with Stage 4 cancer who had survived well past all expectations for his disease. While talking about achieving happiness through balance in life, he pulled out of his wallet a card made for him by his daughter, a preschool teacher.
“This is the C card,” he told us. “It says: ‘I have cancer. I can do whatever I want.’”
What a great idea, I thought. As much as it resonated with me, though, I couldn’t help but feel there was more to it than that.
Recently I was comforting a dear friend who had lost her mother. Remembering this handout from the AAFP, I held her close and said: “You’re a mourner now. You can do whatever you want.” I might as well said: “You have the M card.”
There’s this crotchety old guy in his eighties whom I’ve known for years. He does whatever he wants. I don’t think he actually carries a card in his wallet that says: “This is the O card. I am old. I can do whatever I want,” but he might as well. He is indeed old, and so he is entitled. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Dinosaur*
December 22nd, 2010 by RamonaBatesMD in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Archives of Internal Medicine, Axillary Dissection, BCRL, Breast Cancer, Dr. Kathryn Schmitz, Dr. Ramona Bates, Lymphedema, Mastectomy, New England Journal of Medicine, Oncology, Physical Fitness, Strength Training, Suture For A Living, Weight Training, Weightlifting, Women's Fitness, Women's Health
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Last August, Kathryn Schmitz, PhD, MPH and colleagues published the results of their study Weightlifting in Women with Breast-Cancer–Related Lymphedema (BCRL) in the New England Journal of Medicine. They have now published a similar study in the Archives of Internal Medicine (see full reference below).
While the NEJM article focused on breast cancer survivors with lymphedema, the Archives article focuses on breast cancer survivors without lymphedema. The new study adds weight for the need to change historic dogma which cautions breast cancer patients to avoid weight training after a mastectomy and or axillary dissection. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
December 22nd, 2010 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Diet and Exercise, Dr. John Mandrola, Exercise Before Breakfast, Fitness Goals, Food and Nutrition, Holiday Eating, Metabolism, Morning Exercise, New York Times, Physiology, Pre-Breakfast Exercise, Tara Parker-Pope
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It’s the time of the year when dietary temptations lurk around every corner of the hospital. And since completely abstaining is not always possible, the best antidote for this holiday deluge of inflammation is obvious: Exercise.
No doubt, within the boundaries of common sense, all exercise is good. But is there a best time of day to exercise?
Tara Parker-Pope’s New York Times piece suggests that the most “productive” time of day to exercise is before breakfast. In concisely reviewing a Belgian exercise physiology study, Ms. Parker-Pope points out that, in blunting the undesirable effects of a high fat and sugar diet, pre-breakast (fasting) exercise was metabolically more efficient than was exercise later in the day. That’s really good news for the overweight middle-agers who consistently say: “I really don’t eat very much. I must have a slow metabolism.”
Scientific studies are one thing, but are they validated in the court of real life? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
