Last month I reported about the Social Media Code of Conduct released by Roche and I also shared my opinion on the issue. Now Sabine Kostevc, Head of Corporate Internet and Social Media at F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, gave an interview to Silja Chouquet:
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
Last week, Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of BlackBerry smartphones, held a clinical collaboration summit in Boston to discuss their vision of the future of mobile device integration into healthcare IT. Several vendors and app makers attended and shared how they are implementing mobile devices into workflows with RIM claiming their superiority in security and data protection through data wiping, access control, and audit trail.
One claim that several speakers made was that hours per week could be saved by making clinical and logistical data available on smartphones and that studies have shown clinical information presented on a small screen can be used for mobile situation diagnostic ability, notably for ECG and OB data through companies like AirStrip. A few studies have backed parts of this claim, [including] a recent paper in the Journal of Hospital Medicine by Wu. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
With patients having to pay more of what’s charged for their healthcare, comparisons between medical systems like this one in Pennsylvania make us wonder if bigger necessarily means better. From the Times-Tribune:
The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council study looked at four regional hospitals that offer cardiac surgery: Geisinger Wyoming Valley, Plains Twp.; Community Medical Center and Mercy Hospital, Scranton; and Pocono Medical Center, East Stroudsburg.
Among the four, Geisinger Wyoming Valley carries the biggest price tag. In 2008, the average hospital charge for a coronary artery bypass graft surgery was $108,029 and the average hospital charge for valve surgery was $132,740, according to information in the report. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
The man who twirled with rose in teeth
Has his tongue tied up in thorns
His once expanded sense of time and
Space all shot and torn
See him wander hat in hand –
“Look at me, I’m so forlorn –
Ask anyone who can recall
It’s horrible to be born!
– Bruce Cockburn, from song “Shipwrecked at the Stable Door”
I found the discussion around my recent post about treating colds very interesting. Sick people come to the office to find out how sick they are. Most people don’t want to be sick, and when they are sick they want doctors to make them better.
Most people.
Some people want to be sick, and some doctors want to make people sick. I am not talking about hypochondriacs — people who worry that they may have disease and become fixated on being sick. I am not talking about malingerers — people who pretend to be sick so they can get medications. I am talking about the slippery slope of defining disease. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
Some interesting items this week involving hands. The one which has gotten much news coverage is the issue of handwashing. Take a look at some of the headlines:
High five! Handwashing on rise (Chicago Sun-Times)
For Many, ‘Washroom’ Seems to Be Just a Name (The New York Times)
93% of women wash their hands vs. 77% of men (USA Today)
All the above are reporting on the same study, but the difference in presentation is amazing to me.
The study doesn’t involve handwashing in a hospital or doctor’s office setting. The JAMA article (2nd reference below) does, but this article focuses on whether public reporting of handwashing compliance is helpful or not. Do we inflate our numbers to make ourselves look better? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
