October 26th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: Asleep At The Wheel, Car Manufacturers, Driver Alert Systems, Driver Safety, Eyetracker, Falling Asleep While Driving, Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology, Health Technology, Line Of Vision, Medgadget, Momentary Driver Drowsiness, Public Safety, Safe Driving, Sleepy Drivers, Spatial Position of the Pupil, Staying Awake While Driving, Tracking Drivers' Eyes, Vehicle Safety
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While some car manufacturers already offer systems which can alert drivers who are dozing off, the feature is rare, and tends to be quite expensive when offered.
Now, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology have developed the Eyetracker, which provides this functionality at a lower cost and can be installed in any car. The Eyetracker’s cameras track the driver’s eyes, and the system will sound an alert if it determines that the driver is falling asleep. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
October 26th, 2010 by Jennifer Shine Dyer, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Centers For Medicare And Medicaid Services, CMS, Communication Gap, Consumer Health Information, Doctor Patient Relationship, Doctor-Patient Communication, Dr. Don Berwick, Dr. Jennifer Shine Dyer, General Medicine, Hard-To-Understand Medical Information, Health Insurance, Health Literacy Action Plan, Healthcare reform, Kaiser Permanente, Medical Forms, Patient Education, Patient Handouts, Plain-English Documents, Poor Health Outcomes, Public Health, Reading Medical Materials, Training New Doctors, Type 2 Diabetes, UCSF, Understanding Health Information, University of California-San Francisco
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When it comes to understanding medical information, even the most sophisticated patient may not be “smarter than a fifth grader.”
In one of the largest studies of the links between health literacy and poor health outcomes, involving 14,000 patients with type 2 diabetes, researchers at the University of California San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente found that more than half the patients reported problems learning about their condition and 40 percent needed help reading medical materials. The patients with limited health literacy were 30 to 40 percent more likely to experience hypoglycemia — dangerously low blood sugar that can be caused if medications are not taken as instructed — than those with an adequate understanding of medical information.
Now, federal and state officials are pushing public health professionals, doctors, and insurers to simplify the language they use to communicate with the public in patient handouts, medical forms, and health websites. More than two-thirds of the state Medicaid agencies call for health material to be written at a reading level between the fourth and sixth grades.
A new federal program called the Health Literacy Action Plan is promoting simplified language nationwide. And some health insurers, doctors’ practices, and hospitals have begun using specialized software that scans documents looking for hard-to-understand words and phrases and suggests plain-English replacements. Read more »
October 25th, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Research
Tags: ACP Internist, American College Of Physicians, Anesthesiology, California, Centers For Medicare And Medicaid Services, Direct Physician Supervision, Doctor Must Be Present During Nurse's Care, Health Affairs, Hospital Medicine, Inpatient Death, Institute of Medicine, Medicare, New Jersey, Nurse Anesthetists, Nursing, Patient Complications, Practice Without A Doctor's Supervision, Ryan DuBosar
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New Jersey’s state health department is considering a rule that would allow nurse anesthetists to work without a doctor’s supervision, as long as there’s a plan to reach one in case of an emergency. New Jersey would join the 30 states that allow nurse anesthetists to work without direct supervision.
On the other end of the country, a California court upheld the state’s decision to opt out of a Medicare requirement that doctors be present while a nurse anesthetist works in order to be reimbursed. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have allowed states to opt out of that requirement since 2001.
Since then, there has been no evidence of increased inpatient deaths or complications, researchers reported in the August 2010 issue of Health Affairs. Earlier this month, the Institute of Medicine reported that nurses should have a larger role in medical care, including anesthesiology.
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
October 25th, 2010 by Debra Gordon in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Research
Tags: Big Pharma, Copaxone, Cost of Drugs, Cost of Medications, Costs of Disease, Debra Gordon, Drug Companies, ECTRIMS, European Committee for the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis, FDA, Fingolimod, Food and Drug Administration, Fragmented Healthcare System, General Medicine, Gilenya, Glatiramer Acetate, Health Insurance Coverage, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare reform, Insurance Companies, Interferon beta-1b, Long-Term Healthcare Costs, Long-Term Healthcare Fix, Medications Not Covered By Insurance, Musings on Medicine and Healthcare, Natalizumab, Out-Of-Pocket Costs, Perscription Medications, Quality of Life, Rebif, Sweden, Tysabri, U.S. Healthcare System, Unapproved Prescriptions
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I spent last week in Gothenburg, Sweden covering the European Committee for the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) meeting. Lots of good science, lots of excitement over the new oral and targeted therapies coming on the market to treat this awful disease. But what I want to write about isn’t the science, but about how it will play out in the brave new world of healthcare in which we all live in today.
For instance, consider the first oral therapy to hit the market: Gilenya (fingolimod), which the FDA approved in September. Last month Novartis announced the price: $48,000 a year.
This is not a rant against the high cost of drugs, however. It is a rant against the inability of our healthcare system to take the long view of the impact of such drugs, a view that is particularly important with a chronic disease like MS that strikes healthy young adults in their early 20s and 30s. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at A Medical Writer's Musings on Medicine, Health Care, and the Writing Life*
October 25th, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
Tags: Australia, Big Pharma Campaigns, Consumer Drug Marketing, Direct-To-Consumer Drug Advertising, Disease Mongering, Drug Hype, Femail Urogenital Problems, Gary Schwitzer, HealthNewsReview.org, Medical Advertising, Medical Marketing Language, Medicalization, Menopause, Multinational Pharmaceutical Companies, Postmenopausal Women, Public Relations, Sexual Dysfunction, Sexual Health, Signs of Aging, Vaginal Atrophy, Women's Health
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Just five days ago we wrote about an American journalist’s observations of medicalization of one problem sometimes observed after menopause: Vaginal atrophy.
Today we see that this disease-mongering trend has popped up in Australia as well. This should be no surprise. Such campaigns are usually led by multinational pharmaceutical companies and their advertising and public relations agencies.
What caught our eye was an article on a women’s health foundation website — a foundation that posts a pretty thin excuse for why it won’t tell you its source of funding. Its article on vaginal atrophy uses classic disease-mongering language:
“Ask a woman over the age of 50 about the ‘signs of ag[e]ing’ and she’ll most likely lament about grey hairs, wrinkles and certain body parts having lost their youthful perkiness. What she probably won’t mention is that is that things are ageing “downstairs” too; up to 40% of postmenopausal women show signs of vaginal atrophy.”
The silent epidemic that no one talks about. The huge prevalence estimate — where does that 40 percent figure come from? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
