November 1st, 2010 by EvanFalchukJD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
Tags: Best Doctors, Boston Globe, Doctor Patient Relationship, Evan Falchuk, Family Medicine, General Medicine, Health Insurance, Healthcare Costs, Healthcare Incentives, Healthcare Law, Healthcare reform, Internal Medicine, Long Waits for Patients, New Doctors, New U.S. Healthcare System, Not Enough Doctors, Physician Recruitment, Practicing Medicine, Primary Care, Recruiting Doctors, See First Blog, Shortage of Primary Care Doctors, The Future of American Healthcare, Wait For An Appointment, Waiting To See A Doctor, White Coat Notes Blog
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You want to see a doctor? You’re going to have to wait. And I don’t mean like an hour in the office. I mean like 53 days.
It’s not some doomsday story from the future. It’s happening today here in Massachusetts. Massachusetts — the state whose 2006 law was the model for the federal healthcare reform law. Massachusetts — home to some of the world’s best medical centers and doctors. And, as the Boston Globe’s “White Coat Notes” blog reports, Massachusetts — home to doctor shortages and long waits to see a doctor:
When primary care patients do secure an appointment for a non-urgent matter, they have to wait to get in the door, the survey found. The average delay is 29 days to see a family medicine doctor, down from 44 days last year, and 53 days to see an internist, up from 44 days last year.
The report said shortages also exist in dermatology, emergency medicine, general surgery, neurology, orthopedics, psychiatry, urology, and vascular surgery.
But what about costs? If you make sure everyone’s covered, you’ve got the foundation for real cost control, right? Unfortunately, no. Healthcare costs have been booming in Massachusetts:
Costs are rising relentlessly for both families and for the state government. The median annual premium for family plans jumped 10% from 2007 to 2009 to $14,300 — again, that’s a substantial rise on top of an already enormous number. For small businesses, the increase was 12%. In 2006, the state spent around $1 billion on Medicaid, subsidies for medium-to-lower earners, and other health-care programs. Today, the figure is $1.75 billion. The federal government absorbed half of the increase.
So what are the lessons for the future of American healthcare? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at See First Blog*
October 31st, 2010 by DavidHarlow in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
Tags: #chs10, Connected Health Symposium 2010, David Harlow, EHR, Health Technology, Health Tools, HealthBlawg, Healthcare reform, HIPAA, Home Health, mHealth, Mobile Health, Patient-Centered Medical Home, PHR, Social Media
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I [recently] attended the Connected Health Symposium in Boston. I enjoyed many of the sessions (sometimes wished I could have attended two simultaneously, though the livetweeting — #chs10 — helped on that front), and as usual enjoyed the hallway and exhibit floor conversations too. As is often the case at conferences these days, I had the opportunity to meet several online connections in real life for the first time.
(I will not attempt to give a comprehensive report of the symposium here. Please see the livetweeting archive and other reports to get a sense of the rest of the event.)
This year’s exhibit floor included a diverse mix of distance health tools. Most striking from my perspective was the fact that most of these tools do one of two things: Enable patient-clinician videoconferencing, or upload data from in-home monitoring devices. The best of the second category also trigger alerts resulting in emails or PHR/EHR alerts to clinicians if vital signs are out of whack, or phone calls to consumers or their caregivers if, for example, meds aren’t taken on time (one company had a pill bottle with a transmitter in the cap that signals when it’s opened; another had a Pyxis-like auto-dispenser, that looked like you’d need an engineer — or a teenager — to program it). One tool — Intel’s — seemed to combine most of these functions, and more, into one platform, but it’s barely in beta, with only about 1,000 units out in the real world.
The speakers this year seemed to return again and again to several major themes: (1) Is any particular connected health solution scalable? (2) Who will pay for connected health, or mobile health (mHealth)? and (3) Does it work? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
October 31st, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News
Tags: CDC, Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Bertalan Mesko, General Medicine, Health Communicators, Health Messages, Healthcare Communication, Healthcare Social Media, Medicine and Social Media, Science Roll, Social Media and Health Communication
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published the newest “Health Communicator’s Social Media Toolkit.” From the CDC:
A guide to using social media to improve reach of health messages, increase access to your content, further participation with audiences, and advance transparency to improve health communication efforts.
The guide is truly fantastic, detailed, and comprehensive.
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
October 31st, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, News, Research
Tags: ACP Internist, American College Of Physicians, Blood Sugar Control, Candy, Community Health, Diabetic Medicine, Food and Nutrition, Glycemic Control, Halloween, HDL Cholesterol, Health Commissioner, High Polyphenol Chocolate, High-Fat Foods, Insulin Resistance, Media Message, Medical Advertising, New York City, Nutritional Issues, Obesity, Overweight, Public Awareness, Public Health, Ryan DuBosar, Sugar Consumption, Sugary Soft Drinks, Type 2 Diabetes, Weight Gain, Weight Management
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New York City’s war on sugary soft drinks had to balance evidence-based medicine with a short, simple message that would go viral in the community. Going viral won, according to e-mails of internal discussions between the city’s health commissioner, his staff, and the ad agency that crafted the campaign. The statement that soda would cause a person to gain 10 pounds a year is contingent upon many factors, argued the staff, but the desire to produce a media message with impact overruled the details. One nutritionist called the campaign “deliciously disgusting.”
Chocolate may moderate HDL cholesterol in type 2 diabetics, according to the November issue of Diabetic Medicine. High polyphenol chocolate increased HDL cholesterol in diabetics without affecting weight, insulin resistance or glycemic control. Researchers enrolled 12 type 2 diabetics in a randomized, placebo-controlled double-blind crossover study to 45 g chocolate with or without a high polyphenol content for eight weeks and then crossed over after a four-week washout period. HDL cholesterol increased with high polyphenol chocolate (1.16+/-0.08 vs. 1.26+/-0.08 mmol/l, P=0.05) with a decrease in the total cholesterol: HDL ratio (4.4+/-0.4 vs. 4.1+/-0.4 mmol/l, P=0.04). No changes were seen with the low polyphenol chocolate.
With Halloween, sugar will be on everyone’s mind (and in everyone’s stomachs). To find out how many calories and how much fat that pile of Halloween candy totals, try this interactive module. (New York Times, Diabetic Medicine, ABC Chanel 7 News-Denver)
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
October 30th, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
Tags: AAAnswers, Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm, Aneurysm Screenings, Blue Light Special, CardioBrief, Gary Schwitzer, HealthNewsReview.org, Kmart, Larry Husten, Medtronic, Public Health, Screening, Screening Tests
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Kmart, Medtronic, and a bunch of specialty medical groups are sponsoring a campaign called “Find the AAAnswers” — the “AAA” standing for abdominal aortic aneurysm.
It’s clever marketing for Kmart’s pharmacy business, since the screenings are being offered throughout the Fall at more than 900 Kmart pharmacies. And it’s not bad business for the specialty medical groups, either, as Larry Husten wrote on his Cardiobrief blog:
…the expenses of the program and the coalition are entirely underwritten by Medtronic, which sells abdominal stent grafts used to repair AAAs, and the members of the coalition include organizations like the Peripheral Vascular Surgical Society, the Society for Vascular Surgery, and the Society for Vascular Ultrasound, whose members may derive a significant portion of their income from performing AAA repairs and screening.
Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
