November 29th, 2010 by Glenn Laffel, M.D., Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Biotechnology, Boehners, Chronic Diseases, Dr. Glenn Laffel, Election 2010, Grant Funding, Health Reform Law, Healthcare Reform Politics, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Life Sciences, National Institutes of Health, NIH, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pelosis, Pizaazz, PPACA, Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Program, Research Grant, Tax Credits, Underfunded, Washington Post
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After assuming control of the House in the mid-term elections, Republicans vowed to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act, the health reform law signed by the “Big O” last March. Thank heavens, therefore, that the Boehners were too busy congratulating themselves to even notice those federal helicopters dumping $1 billion in cash on some needy biotech companies just as the election results were being tallied.
Yep, it happened. Federal disbursements in the form of grants and tax credits were made last week, as required by a provision in the reform law known as the Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Program. According to the terms of this program, biotech and life sciences companies with less than 250 employees could apply for federal funds to cover research costs they had incurred in the last two years, so long as the research focused on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of chronic diseases. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
November 27th, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: 33 Charts, Boston Children's Hospital, Children's Health, Children's Hospital Blogs, Dr. Bryan Vartabedian, Dr. Claire McCarthy, Healthcare and Internet Technology, Healthcare Social Media, Hospitals and Social Media, Medicine and Healthcare Online, Pediatrics, Seattle Children's Hospital, SeattleMamaDoc, Social Media In Medicine, Thrive Blog
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I [recently] participated in an interview for an upcoming publication. As the interview wound down, the dialog downshifted into small talk that included, among other things, hospital blogs.
The interviewer (who had recently been exploring the blogging community) asked me what I thought about Thrive’s (Boston Children’s Hospital blog) recent birthday nod to Seattle Mama Doc (Seattle Children’s Hospital blog). More specifically, did I think it was unusual that one children’s hospital would congratulate a competing institution on its one-year anniversary?
I thought the question was odd but it got me thinking: Do children’s hospitals compete in the social space? I don’t think so. They shouldn’t. And if they were competing, what would they be competing for?
Children’s hospitals are inherently regional. Parents of the northwest see Seattle Children’s as the end of the earth. In the northeast, Boston Children’s is the bee’s knees. And while specialty service lines like congenital heart surgery may draw patients from around the world, most kids come from their corner of the world.
Then there’s the broader question about the point of a blog for a children’s hospital. Is it a marketing gimmick or does it serve a higher function? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
November 27th, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: AMA, American Medical Association, Archives of Internal Medicine, Choosing A Good Doctor On The Internet, Doctor Rating Sites, Doctor Ratings, Doctor Reviews on the Web, Doctors' Ratings Accountability, Dr. Kevin Pho, Dr. Nancy Nielsen, Finding A Doctor Online, Going Online To Look For A Doctor, Journal of General Internal Medicine, KevinMD, Online Doctor Reviews, Online Patient Reviews Of Doctors, Online Physicians Ratings, Patient-Physician Communication, Searching Your Doctor's Name Online, Tara Lagu, USA Today
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The following op-ed was published on October 27th, 2010 in USA Today:
When I ask new patients how they found me, frequently they say on the Internet through search engines such as Google.
Out of curiosity, I recently Googled myself. Numerous ads appeared, promising readers a “detailed background report” or a “profile” of me. Among the search results was information about my practice, whether I was board certified, had any lawsuits against me, and reviews from online doctor rating sites. Thankfully, most were favorable, but some were not.
Can patients reliably choose a good doctor online?
People already choose restaurants, movies, and their college professors based on what they read on the Internet, so it’s inevitable that many will research their doctors on the Web as well. But there are some good reasons consumers should be wary of the information they find online about doctors.
Random information?
An Archives of Internal Medicine study in September found that most publicly available information on individual physicians — such as disciplinary actions, the number of malpractice payments, or years of experience — had little correlation with whether they adhered to the recommended medical guidelines. In other words, there’s no easy way to research how well a doctor manages conditions such as heart disease or diabetes. That kind of relevant performance data are hidden from the public. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
November 27th, 2010 by GruntDoc in Better Health Network, News, Opinion
Tags: AMA, amednews, American Medical Association, American Medical News, Dr. Allen Roberts, Earlier Articles, GruntDoc, Medical Publishing, Online Archive, Past Content
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Via the American Medical Associations’s American Medical News article “Welcome to our archives“:
Now, our extensive online archive, paired with search and article collections by topic, puts thousands of stories at your fingertips.
Add to that a growing collection of Web-only content, such as our interactive tool for tracking health-plan earnings and a “Vault” page that will take you directly to articles and multimedia on topics of enduring interest (www.amednews.com/vault).
Most of that older content has been behind an access-control wall. By knocking down that barrier, we are making available 10 years of full content and several years more of selected earlier articles. All told, about 15,000 articles now can be searched and read.
We invite our readers to visit the archives and link to our articles from their own sites, blogs and posts.
Thanks, AMedNews! I suppose an I told you so would be rude, so I won’t.
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
November 26th, 2010 by Dinah Miller, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Humor, Opinion, True Stories
Tags: Dr. Dinah Miller, Dr. Edward Darell, Healthcare Humor, Medical Humor, Mental Health, My Three Shrinks, Not Being Funny, Psychiatry and Psychology, Psychotherapy, Shrink Rap, ShrinqueRap, Stigma, Treatment and Humor, YouTube
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Awhile back I put up a YouTube audio that I thought was funny. A commenter didn’t like it and felt it promoted stigma. So I took a vote, and while most people were fine with it, a number did not like it, and I took the post down. We received this note, and I thought it was substantial enough to be its own guest post (with permission, of course).
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Hi. I am a practicing psychiatrist based in New York City. I find your blog interesting, informative, and, at times, funny. Now, can you guess which entry I’d like to comment on?
Mel Brooks once said (paraphrased) that if you slip on a banana peel and land on your butt, it’s comedy. If I fall down a flight of stairs, it’s tragedy. I’ve had a long-term interest in humor, and a brief career as an unpaid stand-up comic in L.A. (Brief because my bombing to “killing” ratio was about 15 to one.) With respect to my experience as a therapist, I now occasionally utilize humor in my treatment, but only extremely judiciously once I have gotten to know my client. I learned my lesson early.
At the beginning of my residency training, during my second session with a client, I commented that perhaps he felt like Groucho Marx when Groucho said that he “wouldn’t want to be a member of any club with standards low enough to accept [him].” I sat back, feeling as if I had made the interpretation of the century, and waited for a reaction. I got one. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*
After assuming control of the House in the mid-term elections, Republicans vowed to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act, the health reform law signed by the “Big O” last March. Thank heavens, therefore, that the Boehners were too busy congratulating themselves to even notice those federal helicopters dumping $1 billion in cash on some needy biotech companies just as the election results were being tallied.
