August 15th, 2011 by admin in Health Tips, Opinion
Tags: 6-8 glasses, American Society of Nephrology, Bottled Water, Bottled Water Industry, British Bottled Water Producers, British Medical Journal, Diario Medico, Drink, El Gerente de Mediado, Hydration for Health, M.D., Margaret McCartney, NHS, Stanley Goldfarb, Thirsty, Water, Water Consumption, Waterlogged
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“Bueno es saber que los vasos
nos sirven para beber;
lo malo es que no sabemos
para qué sirve la sed”.
Proverbios y cantares.XLI. Antonio Machado
(‘It’s good to know that glasses
are what can help us drink;
The trouble is, we don’t know
What is the purpose of thirst’)
The one thing you can’t afford to have missing when you start a scientific congress or any other professional meeting is not a notepad, a pencil or even an iPad – nowadays, it’s a bottle of water. Offices, airports, handbags and lecture halls, all of them are bursting with all kinds of bottles. It seems they are essential to work and even to stay alive.
Bordering nonsense, some people desperately search for a bottled water vending machine as soon as they arrive at the airport, even if that means gobbling it down in a minute before walking through the security checkpoints.
It is now a common belief that continously drinking water (6 to 8 glasses a day according to NHS, at least two litres -half a gallon- according to other sources) is the healthy thing to do. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Diario Medico*
August 15th, 2011 by Lucy Hornstein, M.D. in Opinion
Tags: Electronic, Electronic Medical Record, Email, EMR, EOBs, Explanation of Benefits, Google Voice, Internet, Meaningful Use, Medical Technology, Medicare, NeatDesk Duplex Scanner, Paperless, Paperwork, Reimbursement, Scanner, Web, WhiteCoat, Woot
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Seven months into 2011, things look very different than they did this time last year at my office. Not only have I been using an electronic medical record for nine months now, but I’ve also been submitting claims electronically (through a free clearinghouse) using an online practice management system. I’ve also begun scanning patients’ insurance cards into the computer, as well as converting all the paper insurance Explanation of Benefits (EOBs) into digital form. I’ve even scanned all my office bills and business paperwork and tossed all the actual paper into one big box. As of the first of the year I even stopped generating “daysheets” at the end of work each day. After all, with my new system I can always call up the information I want whenever I need it.
How did such a committed papyrophile get to this point? It is the culmination of a process that actually began last summer with the purchase of an adorable refurbished little desktop scanner from Woot ($79.99, retails for $199, such a deal!) The organizational software is useless for my purposes, but it does generate OCR PDFs, which makes copying and pasting ID numbers from insurance cards into wherever else they need to be a piece of proverbial cake. The first step was to start Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Dinosaur*
August 15th, 2011 by Berci in Opinion
Tags: Doctor Patient Relationship, Doctors, E-Patient, Health Blogs, Health Management, Informed Patient, Internet, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Mobile Apps, Online Patient Communities, Patients, Physicians, Web 2.0
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Recently, I’ve had an interview with a national newspaper and the woman who performed the interview told me she was surprised that I seemed to be the first doctor in her life who was happy about patients using the internet. Well, she surprised me with this statement as I’ve never thought about that before. But she must be right. There are many doctors who get upset when they find out the patient tried to find information online. They are frustrated as they don’t even know how to use these online tools and have no idea how to help the patients in this perspective.
Myself, I’m pretty much happy about it. I love to hear patients Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
August 15th, 2011 by Glenn Laffel, M.D., Ph.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Affordable Care Act, Commentary, Congress, Cost Control, Healthcare reform, Henry Aaron, Independent Payment Advisory Board, IPAB, Jonathan Cohn, Lawmakers, Lobbyists, Medicare, Obamacare, Repeal, Senate
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In recent weeks, several Democrats and some health reform advocates including the AMA have joined Republicans in calling for a repeal of provisions in the new health law that create the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). For these people, IPAB represents the worst aspects of the new law–an unelected, centralized planning authority empowered by government to make decisions about the peoples’ health care. Arbitrary cuts to providers, short-sighted decisions that stifle innovation and rationing of care are sure to follow, they claim.
While it’s true that the rules governing IPAB are flawed and should be fixed, eliminating IPAB altogether would be a mistake. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
August 14th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in Opinion
Tags: Aging, Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream, Breast Augmentation, Carl Elliott, Cosmetic Surgery, Enhancement, Face Lift, Going Under the Knife, Health Journalism, Jiggly Underarms, New York Times, Old, Plastic Surgery, Sagging Jowels, Saggy Eyelids, Social Pressures, Youth
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Monday’s New York Times tweeted a headline – “Never Too Old for Plastic Surgery” – about this story.
While I’m very happy for the 83-year old woman in the piece for her happiness over her “new” $8,000 breasts, the piece was framed like an expensive billboard for plastic surgeons – only it didn’t cost them anything. The Times gave away the advertising space.
The story states:
“There are as many reasons for getting plastic surgery as there are older patients, experts say”…and…”some are simply sick of slackened jowls, jiggly underarms and saggy eyelids.”
There are a few other perspectives in the middle of the piece:
“Some critics question whether the benefits are worth the risks, which may be underestimated.”
But it is often how you END a piece that determines readers’ takeaway messages – and it is often also a sign of the message the journalist really wanted to convey. And this one concludes with a Harvard prof’s comment: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
