October 19th, 2009 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Opinion
Tags: #bwe09, Blog World Expo, Medbloggers, Medical Blogosphere, Physicians, Social Media
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It would appear that doctors and nurses in the social space have finally arrived. This week marked the first Blog World Expo with a track dedicated to the medical blogger. BWE brought together some of the web’s most visible medical minds including Kevin Pho (KevinMD), Rob Lamberts (Musings of a Distractible Mind), Kim McAllister (Emergiblog), Bob Coffield (Health Care Law Blog), Paul Levy (Running a Hospital) Mike Sevilla (Doctor Anonymous), and Nick Genes (Blogborygmi), and many more.
From health privacy to the ethical obligation of doctors to be visible on Twitter, the panel-based dialog at Blog World Expo raised as many questions as answers. Medical professionals in the online space face remarkable challenges, especially with regard to transparency, personal boundaries, and the definition of patient privacy. It’s clear that our technology is ahead of our legal and ethical dialog. Read more »
October 19th, 2009 by EvanFalchukJD in Better Health Network, Opinion
Tags: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, AHRQ, Quality, Questions Are The Answer, Social Media, Video
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Last night, I saw a commercial produced by the federal government. Called “Questions are the Answer,” it’s a call for patients to be engaged in their medical care, to ask questions of their doctors in order to be sure of their medical condition.
The commercial was excellent – it showed a man asking dozens of increasingly arcane questions about a cell phone he was thinking of buying. Then, it showed him in his doctor’s office, apparently after getting a diagnosis. “Do you have any questions?” the doctor asks. “Nope,” says the man.
The government agency that produced the commercial is the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. There are a series of other videos and tools that can help you be a better, more informed consumer if you get sick.
The only catch: it’s almost impossible to find any of this great material. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at See First Blog*
October 18th, 2009 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Consumers, Costs, Finance, Health Insurance, Healthcare reform, Pharmaceuticals, Physicians
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If you read nothing else this morning, please read Margaret Polaneczky, MD’s (aka “TBTAM”) excellent post that vividly summarizes our current health care reform efforts underway while offering insights as to what real reform should look like:
Real reform won’t happen until the American people take their seat at the head of the table and invite doctors, ethicists and healthcare experts (not industry lobbyists) to bring their best knowledge about what interventions are most important, most effective and most cost efficient. Then we can sort out our priorities (you can call it rationing if you want) and create a budget.
Only then we can begin to negotiate with third parties (insurers, Big Pharma, etc) to sell us what we need at the best price. That’s called competition, and it’s what American capitalism is all about, right?
The problem is, the American healthcare consumer (and I include myself here) still thinks someone else is footing the bill. Who that someone is, I don’t know. Maybe the rich. Maybe our employers. Maybe the Federal Government.
What we have yet to get is that there is no “someone else”. The deep pockets are our own pockets, and they are empty. Our tax dollars. Our pensions. Our companies going bankrupt from paying employee health care costs.
Until the American people get it that it is our responsibility to get our spending in line, and until our representatives have the guts to turn away the industry lobbyists and represent their constituents instead of their campaign bankrollers, we will continue to have uncontrolled health care spending.
… and that’s just part of it. Read the whole thing.
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
October 16th, 2009 by DrRich in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: ePatients, Government, Health Insurance, Healthcare System, Medical Malpractice, Patients, Rationing, Tort Reform
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DrRich’s conviction that covert rationing is the engine that drives many (if not most) of the bizarre behaviors we see in the American healthcare system leads him to take positions on certain contentious issues that do not endear him to either his progressive or his conservative friends.
One of these issues is malpractice liability reform.
DrRich wrote about this some time ago (here and here), and as a result managed to alienate more than a few of his readers, especially the ones who are doctors. So if he were smart, DrRich would leave it alone. (After all, a lot of readers have long since forgotten precisely why they do not like DrRich, and merely harbor toward him a vague sense of unease and distrust. This, DrRich finds, he can live with.)
But a couple of things prompt DrRich to take up this topic once again. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*
October 15th, 2009 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Opinion
Tags: CMS, Hand Washing, Hospitalists, Hospitals, Internal Medicine, JCAHO, Paperwork, Patient Safety, Physicians, Punishment, Surgery, Time Out
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Over at the WSJ Health Blog, some academic docs, such as hospitalist Dr. Wachter are suggesting just that.
Punishments such as revoking privileges for a chunk of time tend to be used for administrative infractions that cost the hospital money – things like failing to sign the discharge summaries that insurance companies require to pay the hospital bill. By contrast, hospital administrators may just shrug their shoulders when it comes to doctors who fail or refuse to follow rules like a “time out” before surgery to avoid operating on the wrong body part.
Docs and nurses who fail to follow rules about hand hygiene or patient handoffs should lose their privileges for a week, Pronovost and Wachter suggest. They recommend loss of privileges for two weeks for surgeons who who fail to perform a “time-out” before surgery or don’t mark the surgical site to prevent wrong-site surgery.
This couldn’t have come at a better time. At Happy’s hospital there is a massive witch hunt to crack down on not signing off verbal orders within 48 hours. This has nothing to do with patient safety. It has everything to do with meeting the requirements of CMS so the hospital does not lose their funding. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at A Happy Hospitalist*
