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Physician Says It’s Legally Safer To Blog About Food Than Healthcare

May 6th, 2011 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Opinion

Tags: Blogging, Facebook, healthcare, Social Media, Twitter

A Rhode Island emergency room doc has been fired for posting about a trauma patient on her facebook page. While the post did not reveal patient name or personal identifiers, it had enough clinical info that a third party was able to  recognize the patient.

I say if you’re going to write online about a patient, you had better disguise them so well they don’t even recognize themselves, and never post anywhere near the time of the event’s occurrence. Some bloggers I know change age, sex and other details, and post events long after they’ve happened, so no one one could ever know for sure who they’re talking about. Some doc bloggers go so far as to disguise themselves – preferring to remain anonymous both to protect themselves and their patients.

Some medical blogsites are rich with teaching cases, including x-rays and clinical information that, if disguised, would alter the diagnostic possibilities. As online venues begin to replace the time honored medical journal or local grand rounds, how do we keep our ability to teach one another with clinical cases and still respect patient privacy?  In the past, the limited circulation of medical journals kept these cases amongst the medical community, but now with the internet (and the lay public’s interest in medicine), the audience for such case histories is limitless. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*

National Strategy To Reduce Prescription Drug Abuse: Is Playing Big Brother Ok In An Emergency?

May 5th, 2011 by Steven Roy Daviss, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion

Tags: addiction, Addiction Medicine, Big Brother, Drug Abuse, Government, HHS, Mental Health, National Strategy, Prescription Drug Abuse, Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, Psychiatry, Psychology

The White House released its plan last week entitled “Epidemic: Responding to America’s Prescription Drug Abuse Crisis” [LINK to pdf of this 10-page plan]. Below are some of the elements in this plan that is part of the National Drug Control Strategy (like that has worked so well :-/).

The areas of this plan involve education of prescribers and users, monitoring programs, making it easy to dispose of controlled dangerous substances (CDS for short), and enhancing enforcement. The plan establishes thirteen goals for the next five years, and also creates a coordinating body, the Federal Council on Prescription Drug Abuse, to oversee and coordinate it all.

If any of our readers have comments on specific items (I’ve numbered them for ease of reference), including unintended (or even intended) consequences, please chime in.

1. EDUCATION
   1. require training on responsible opiate prescribing
   2. require Pharma to develop education materials for providers and patients
   3. require professional schools and organizations to include instruction on balancing use of opiates for pain while reducing abuse
   4. require state licensing boards to include relevant ongoing education in their licensure requirements
   5. help ACEP develop guidelines for opiate prescribing in the Emergency Department [this should be a big help]
   6. increased use of written patient-provider agreements
   7. facilitate public education campaigns, especially targeting parents
   8. encourage research on low-abuse potential treatments, epidemiology of substance abuse, and abuse-deterrent formulations Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*

Spanish Physicians Take Heed: Social Media Influences Healthcare Decision-Making

May 5th, 2011 by FredericLlordachsMD in Health Policy, Opinion

Tags: Catalonia, Demographic, Diario Medico, Facebook, Healthcare Decisions, Physicians, Social Media, Spain, Spanish, Twitter

The Spanish Twitter chapter of #hcsmeu (hashtag #hcsmeuES) held its first unconference on April 1st in Barcelona. For many it sounds like a convention of freakish fans of some cult science-fiction TV show (a group I’m also part of, by the way). But its actually a group of about 200 healthcare professionals from all over Spain who share their interest in social networks and their influence in this particular industry.

Many of those present were meeting face to face for the first time but all of them had previously been gathering weekly on Twitter for a one-hour discussion about the relationship between physicians, pharma, patients and ICT, just as other groups across Europe.

Nowadays even the most reactionary guy admits that both new technological advances and social networking are changing our world, and healthcare won’t be an exception. But these people saw it coming, they are ahead of their time.

In 2010, top searches in Google –in Spain– were for terms Facebook, YouTube, Tuenti(*) and Twitter, all social networks. An average Internet user typically spends 22% of his online time in social networks. Advertising expenditure declines on every media except the Web, where it keeps growing month after month. In fact, big brands have already detected a switch from direct influence –they get less visits to their websites– to mentions in social media: 63% of Spain’s Twitter users do use it to recommend products. 61% express their opinion about products and services. 84% don’t mind getting messages from brands, and many say that companies that make use of social media are outdoing their competition’s revenue and profit. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Diario Médico*

Should Physician Social Networks Include Chiropractors?

May 4th, 2011 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Opinion

Tags: Chiropractors, Sermo, Social Media, Social Networks

Should physician social networks include chiropractors?  I don’t think so.

My human signal likely wouldn’t benefit from a chiropractor’s input.  Similarly, I’m not sure that a chiropractor would benefit tremendously from the input of allopaths and osteopaths.  This isn’t a judgment about any chiropractor’s value, it’s just that our worlds are too divergent.  To suggest that ‘we all just need to get along‘ is missing the point.  Complementary physical care has its place.  But a great community is about people who have the capacity to make one another stronger through cooperative relationships.

I suspect that the chiropractors have the numbers to support a tidy little vertical of their own.  There’s a big opportunity for someone so inclined.

Would I willingly participate in a network that connects MDs and chiropractors?  I would if the network proved valuable.  And that can be a challenge independent of who you invite.  Sermo, for the record, excludes chiropractors from membership.

Nicholas Christakis in Connected suggests that all of this should evolve on its own, independent of what any of us individually believe.

We do not cooperate with one another because a state or a central authority forces us to.  Instead, our ability to get along emerges spontaneously from the decentralized actions of people who form groups with connected fates and a common purpose.

What do you think?

*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*

Bariatric Bathrooms: Toilets Built For 500 Pound Patrons?

May 3rd, 2011 by Happy Hospitalist in Opinion, True Stories

Tags: Bariatric Bathrooms, Bathroom, Hospitals, How America Is Changing, Modifications For The Obese, Obesity, Pregnancy

America’s handicap bathroom definition has officially left the train depot for the next station. In America, we are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Oh yeah, and bariatric rated bathrooms. I snapped this picture of a bariatric rated “handicap bathroom” at the hospital Mrs Happy delivered Zachary

A part of me feels for folks who struggle through life outside their home in search of a toilet adequate enough to do their thing. Bathrooms and toilets simply aren’t made to hold the weight or size of 300, 400 or 500 pound people and neither are the hospital toilets.

Part of me wants to believe these bariatric rated bathrooms are for the oversized pregnant women on the floor. But the rational side in me knows otherwise. America is fat. And we have the bariatric rated handicap bathrooms to prove it.

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*