June 2nd, 2009 by admin in Better Health Network
Tags: Diet, Food and Nutrition, Health, Store Brand
No Comments »
I don’t have to tell you that in this economy everyone is looking for ways to cut costs. One place many people are choosing to save pennies is by choosing generic, or store brands, instead of name brands at the supermarket.
The Food Marketing Institute reports these stats:
- 93% of retailers plan to increase the number of store-label products in upcoming months.
- 15% of supermarket sales are store labels compared to 14% in 2008 and 11.5% in 2007.
- 10.8% increase in store label sales in most recent fiscal year. Manufactured brands grew by 2.5%.
The average family spends $98.40 weekly on groceries. If you have children, you will spend well over $100. So saving even a few dollars each shopping trip can add up.
Can you tell a difference in the store brand vs the manufactured brand? I personally will purchase store brand for many things like milk, bread, cheese, butter, etc. I have tried some of the store brand cereals and not found them to be as good as the manufactured brand. It all depends, though, on the product and the price. If a manufactured brand is on sale or if I have a coupon, it is much cheaper to go with that than the store brand.
Did you know that many of the store brands are actually made by national brands and relabeled for the store? This varies by store and product, but often those paper towels that are store brand are the same as the manufactured brand.
What do you think? What do you purchase in the generic, or store brand? Do you notice a difference?
This post, Going Generic, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Brian Westphal.
June 1st, 2009 by Medgadget in Better Health Network
Tags: Babies, Device, Evacuation, ICU, Infants, Nursing, Pediatrics, PICU
No Comments »
Kidnapping Evacuating babies doesn’t seem hard in theory, but imagine you are a lone nurse working in the newborn nursery when that code red goes off. Now, most likely you wouldn’t do much considering code reds go off if you so much as wink in a fire alarm’s direction. But, if you really need to get Costco amount of babies out of the building, then BabyScatt seems like a reasonable option.
From the website:
The BabyScatt is designed to Evacuate 6 babies at one time.
This cocoon like evacuation device has bumper bars on all sides to protect in case of falling debris or possible obstructions in the pathway. After reaching a place of refuge the BabyScatt continues to protect and provide a safe place for the babies to rest in the individual pockets.
Check out the product page here…
(Hat Tip: Gizmodo)
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
June 1st, 2009 by DrRob in Better Health Network
Tags: Advice To Patients, Healthcare System, How To Protect Yourself, Open Letter, Physician, To Patients
No Comments »
Dear patient:
I am sorry you are so frustrated with me. I’m frustrated too.
People used to look on me as a good thing, but now everyone makes me out to be public enemy #1. It’s not my fault. I was made to give you what you need: medical care; but then they kept changing me and making things harder. One side doesn’t seem to know what the other is doing. Changes are made without realizing the consequences. Now instead of giving care, I just make it harder. Now instead of making people get better, I actually harm some people.
It makes me sick to think about it.
I don’t want that to happen to you. I don’t want you to get lost in the paperwork, rules, authorizations, and red tape that seem to define me these days. So instead of being lost in the system, take my advice to live by as you go through me. I mean that literally: these rules may just be the difference between living and dying, so listen closely.
1. Find a home base.
There has to be someone you can go to for trustworty advice. The rest of care is confusing, and you probably won’t know who to trust. Some people will lie to you and others will just confuse you. You need a translator. You need a mooring in the turbulent waters. You need somewhere you can go to orient yourself and know which way is up.
That person may be your PCP – that is the best-case scenario – but it may be someone else. Find someone who doesn’t intimidate you who can answer any question you have. Ask them lots of questions.
2. Don’t fragment your care.
Some people think that healthcare is like going to the supermarket. The shelves may be in different places and the prices may vary some, but the basic stuff they sell is the same anywhere you go. This is a dangerous way to get care. The more places you go, the less each place will know about you. Doctors who are seeing you for the first time can’t do as good of a job as those who know you well. Plus, the more places you go, the better chance that you will get bad care. Not all doctors are created equal.
So if something isn’t an emergency, don’t go to the ER. What constitutes an emergency? Not a baby crying during the night. Yeah, it may be more convenient to go to the ER or urgent care center (as you don’t miss as much work) but you may pay a big price for it. If you can wait to see your doctor, do it. If you can’t get in to see your doctor when you are sick, then maybe you should find another.
3. You are your own keeper.
One of the biggest mistakes people make is to assume someone is watching out for them. They get tests done and assume no news is good news. They go to specialists and assume their PCP knows about it. They spend weeks in the hospital and have all of their medications changed, and think that this information is passed on. It may be, but often it is not. The only one who knows about all of your care is you. The only one who can reliably watch out for you is you.
I know you like your doctor and think she is on top of everything. Unfortunately, good people are stuck in a horrible system. A ton of care is done blindly – without any inkling of what is going on at other locations. You must make sure these parties communicate. You must make sure news gets back to your PCP.
Does this suck? Yeah, it does. Big time. Why should you have to be the record keeper? Why should you be the watch-dog? It’s my fault. I give no reason at all for doctors to communicate, but instead discourage them from doing so. Everyone is working hard to do the job in front of them, and once you are gone from the hospital, specialist, or ER, they have no motivation to communicate. In fact, doing so loses them money.
Some are great at communicating, but many are not. Don’t gamble with your life in this area. Make sure that communication happens.
4. Don’t BS
If you can’t afford a drug, don’t act like you are going to take it. If you are scared about a brain tumor, don’t assume the doctor knows your fear. For some reason, some people feel the need to do PR work when seeing the doctor. They want to look smart and strong even when they are confused and weak. This is pure stupidity.
Tell the truth. Say what you are feeling. Express your fears, and ask as many questions as you need to ask. This also holds true if the patient is your elderly parent or your child. If you wonder about the advice you are getting, get a second opinion.
5. Famous people can be idiots
Oprah is fun to watch and she is a genuinely smart lady, but she isn’t a healthcare expert. I can’t be so gracious with other celebrities. Famous people like attention, and so they will usually get it any way they can. Many of them think that their soap-box makes them smart. None of them are likely to show ignorance – they are good at faking it.
The fact is, they are probably famous only because they are good looking. You don’t see many ugly famous people. This is a bad way to seek medical advice. Would you choose a surgeon based on their sex-appeal? Would you trust the life of your child to someone who got famous because they looked good naked? Don’t be a fool. Trust people who are trustworthy; not people who look good in front of a camera.
6. Don’t overdo it
I can only do so much for you. Everyone dies and most people suffer in life. Some people have bought into the American mindset that says all pain should be avoided. This is a bunch of crap. Don’t medicate every struggle or seek solution for all suffering. Some people seem surprised that life has these things in it. Don’t be; it’s normal.
I don’t say this because I like to see people suffering. I say it because people are putting unfair expectations on me. I can’t beat death. I can’t do the “happily ever after” thing, and I only have so much money. Plus, sometimes people hurt themselves by seeking too much treatment. There are docs out there who will give antibiotics for every runny nose and others who dispense narcotics like candy. Don’t go there. The price you pay is far more than monetary.
That’s just scratching the surface. There is so much more I could say, but the politicians are beating at my door and I have to go. Just remember that nobody else lives in your body. You are the bottom line when it comes to your care. Yeah, I may make it tough sometimes (sorry about that), but that should only make you fight harder to make sure you get the care you need. You can get good care, but it doesn’t happen if you are passive.
I am about to get a big make-over soon, so the walls of my maze will change. Chances are, however, the advice I just gave will still apply no matter what I end up looking like.
Stay strong,
Healthcare
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
May 30th, 2009 by DrRich in Better Health Network, Opinion
Tags: ACS, American College of Surgeons, Cost Savings, Elective Procedures, Finance, healthcare, Medical Tourism
No Comments »
Earlier this year, DrRich offered several potential strategies for doctors and patients to consider, should healthcare reformers ultimately decree it illegal for Americans to seek medical care outside the new universal system. This eventuality (i.e., making it a crime to spend your own money on your own healthcare) may not be as far fetched as one might think at first glance, since in societies where social justice is the ultimate goal, such individual prerogatives must be criminalized.
At that time, DrRich offered several creative solutions to this problem, including offshore, state-of-the-art medical centers on old aircraft carriers, and combination Casino/Hospitals on the sovereign soil of Native American reservations. A reader subsequently offered the possibility of simply establishing institutions something like the “Cleveland Clinic Tijuana,” i.e., cutting-edge medical centers just south of the border. (This solution would have the added advantage of encouraging the government to finally close the borders once and for all, employing whatever means it might take, including military patrols, minefields, and missle-armed drone aircraft.)
As entertaining as it might be to imagine such solutions, a readily available, though much more mundane, solution exists today – medical tourism.
Medical tourism, where one travels outside one’s country in order to obtain medical care elsewhere, is a booming business. A number of superb state-of-the-art medical centers expressly aimed at attracting medical tourists have been established in the Middle East, Singapore, India, China and elsewhere in Asia. These institutions cater to citizens of the world whose own healthcare systems cannot (or will not) provide in a timely fashion (or at all) the level of care patients may desire. They offer modern hospitals, numerous amenities, luxurious accommodations, attentive nursing care, top-notch doctors – and they do it all for a tiny fraction of what the same care might cost (if you can even find it) in the U.S. and other “first world” nations.
Obviously medical tourism is not particularly feasible for medical emergencies such as heart attack or stroke, or for chronic illnesses such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, or Parkinson’s disease, which require frequent visits and long-term management. What is feasible is to become a medical tourist for those one-time medical services that can be scheduled and planned, for which there is a long waiting period at home, or which is simply too expensive in one’s own country. Such medical services often include coronary artery bypass surgery, hip replacements, knee replacements, and numerous minimally-invasive and not-so-minimally-invasive surgical procedures. In other words, medical tourism to a large extent is something one does for elective (i.e., non-emergency) surgery.
It ought not be a surprise, therefore, that the first organization of American physicians to issue a formal policy statement regarding medical tourism is the American College of Surgeons.
The reaction of American surgeons to medical tourism ought to be obvious. They hate it. Elective surgical procedures – the very procedures for which Americans become tourists – are the bread and butter of most surgical specialties. And here go their prospective patients, off to Singapore for their lucrative bypass surgeries. American cardiac surgeons, for instance (already underemployed, thanks to American cardiologists throwing stents at every tiny coronary artery indentation they they can justify as a “blockage”), are nearly apoplectic at the idea.
It’s always fun to read formal policy statements which attempt to deliver an entirely self-serving message whose essence is, “We hate this and if you do it we’ll hate you,” but in which it is necessary to deliver the message in a polite, politically correct, non-judgmental, helpful and even friendly manner.
The surgeons in general have made a good effort, as you can see if you’d like to read the policy statement for yourself. It’s pretty much what you would expect – “Go ahead and have your knee replaced in Timbuktu if you want to. It’s your right, so go ahead and devil take the hindmost. Just don’t come crying to me when things go south a month later.” Only, of course, the surgeons employ the obligatory very polite and professional tone.
DrRich is struck by two aspects of the surgeon’s policy statement on medical tourism.
First, the surgeons begin with a litany of dire warnings regarding all the medical considerations one must take into account before trusting one’s health to foreign medical hands:
“Some of the intangible risks include variability in the training of medical and allied health professionals; differences in the standards to which medical institutions are held; potential difficulties associated with treatment far from family and friends; differences in transparency surrounding patient discussions; the approach to interpretation of test results; the accuracy and completeness of medical records; the lack of support networks, should longer-term care be needed; the lack of opportunity for follow-up care by treating physicians and surgeons; and the exposure to endemic diseases prevalent in certain countries. Language and cultural barriers may impair communication with physicians and other caregivers.”
These are all very important considerations. DrRich notes, however, that these very same considerations (even the warning about endemic diseases, once one allows for the MRSA infections which are secretly “endemic” in some American hospitals) must also be taken into account before agreeing to receive care even in an American institution. It may be that these considerations are more an issue in top-notch foreign hospitals than in your average American hospital, but DrRich is not convinced this is the case, and the surgeons do not provide any evidence that it is. That is, DrRich sees this very good advice as being equally applicable whether one is considering becoming a medical tourist, or just a typical American patient.
Second, and most astoundingly, DrRich notes – not so much with interest, but more with awe – that the surgeons are beseeching their patients to consider just how difficult it might be to launch a malpractice suit against foreign doctors. (DrRich himself does not know how difficult this would be. Given that we are being so strongly urged these days to merge the American legal system with international law, it might not be much of a problem for long.) Indeed, the potential difficulty in suing foreign doctors appears to be the chief differentiator, and the primary argument in favor of good-old-American-surgery. The surgeons, in essence, are saying, “Let us do your surgery, because we’re easier to sue if we screw up.”
This, from the very body of American physicians who are most at risk for malpractice suits, and who traditionally have been most vociferous in favor of malpractice reform.
DrRich can only shake his head in wonderment. If medical tourism is viewed by surgeons as such a dire threat that they are formally embracing medical malpractice suits as their chief weapon against it, then medical tourism must have already caught on far more than most of us realize.
Which means, of course, that when healthcare reform takes place, medical tourism will likely enter a phase of truly explosive growth.
And so, Dear Reader, thanks to this critical clue provided by our friends in the American College of Surgeons, DrRich can confidently offer yet another nugget of investment advice. He formally recommends the medical tourism industry – now in its infancy – as an area ripe for growth.
*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*
May 29th, 2009 by Nancy Brown, Ph.D. in Better Health Network
Tags: Pediatrics, Psychology, SAT, Stress, teens, Test Anxiety, Tests
No Comments »
The junior year of high school includes a huge number of tests including midterms, finals, AP exams, SAT tests that all contribute to which colleges a teen will get into. The pressure is intense and even the mellowest teen will experience at least some anxiety.
Some stress helps teens do better, work harder, and stay focused. Too much stress will strip them of their confidence and actually make their test-taking skills worse. It is important that parent help teens prepare for tests by:
- Not planning trips or events in the weeks before the tests;
- Encouraging them not to cram the night before;
- Encouraging them to take practice tests to increase their comfort;
- Helping them get a good night sleep the night before the test and eating a healthy breakfast;
- Going early and having what they need (picture ID, admit form, pencils, calculator);
- Reminding them to read through the whole test making notes and then budget time and reading all the directions slowly and completely, as well as organizing their thoughts before writing; and
- Working with them to remember to think positively, calming any anxious thoughts during the test.
No matter how independent our teens can be, testing season calls for extra parenting and comfort provision!
This post, How To Help Teens Handle Test Stress, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..
