How should physicians utilize social media in their professional lives? In this video, I was interviewed by Family Practice News at the 2011 American Academy of Family Physicians Annual Scientific Assembly meeting in Orlando. Check out this blog post where there are slides of my presentation at that meeting about social media. (Also FYI, as of this posting, the video above has the most hits of any on the Global Medical News Network channel – Yay!)
Especially for Family Medicine, using social media is very important, in my opinion, to help tell our story. For too long, I believe that we, as a specialty, have let others define who we are. Social media has a chance to change that.
As far as initial use of social media, I advise physicians Read more »
Hospitals that provide the lowest quality care at the highest cost care for more than twice the proportion of elderly minority and poor patients as the nation’s best performers, researchers found. And patients at the “worst” institutions are more likely than patients elsewhere to die of certain conditions, such as heart attacks and pneumonia.
These hospitals and their patients may be the ones most at risk under new Medicare payment arrangements that could cut payments to hospitals that fail to meet quality metrics, reported researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health.
The researchers examined how quality, costs and patients served correlated among 3,200 hospitals nationwide. They then identified 122 “best” hospitals, those that were in the highest quartile of quality and lowest quartile of risk-adjusted costs, and 178 “worst” hospitals, those in the lowest quartile of quality and the highest quartile of costs.
Hospital quality and performance data were Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Hospitalist*
For the last three days, I was out in San Diego for the Weekend for Women: Celebration of Strength conference, and throughout the course of my quick, two and a half day trip, I met so many inspiring women. And I heard so many inspiring things.
Brandy Barnes, creator of the Diabetes Sisters organization, opened the session by talking about dispelling some of the myths and misconceptions of life with all kinds of diabetes. “Fight the mental battle of making our diabetes management a priority, while juggling the competing forces of jobs, family, friends … we have this all in common.” Everyone in the room was living with type 1, type 2, or LADA (and with one self-proclaimed “Type weird”, Ms. Natalie Sera, who I had the pleasure of meeting and hugging).
“Lets wrap our arms around them and help them feel like they are part of our sisterhood,” Brandy said, encouraging those who have attended the conferences in the past to reach out to new attendees.
That was the theme of the weekend – reaching out and being there. There were many speakers (and I was very honored to be one of them, on a panel with some fellow insulin pumpers, talking about diabetes and technology), and their topics varied but their messages all contained the common thread of community.
One wonders how many men have their blood tested for PSA levels looking for prostate cancer without being asked if that’s what they really wanted.
The Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making (which supports my web publishing efforts) has now posted on its YouTube page a video clip with a man who has some regrets about his prostate cancer screening and treatment experience. It’s the same man featured in the New York Times Sunday magazine piece, “Can Cancer Ever Be Ignored?”
Relevant excerpt from the NYT piece:
“Tim Glynn, a self-described country lawyer from Setauket, N.Y., was 47 in 1997 when he went to his primary-care doctor, troubled by a vague feeling of being down. After his physical exam, Glynn was sent to have his blood drawn. Along with thyroid and cholesterol levels, the doctor ordered a P.S.A. test. Read more »
There’s a new term that has entered the medical lexicon. The word is wellness. Hospitals and medical offices are incorporating this term into their mission statements, corporate names, business cards, medical conferences and other marketing materials. The Cleveland Clinic Foundation has appointed a Chief Wellness Officer, an intriguing fluffy title that does not clearly denote this individual’s role and function. This is deliberate, as the word wellness is designed to communicate a ‘feel good’ emotion, not a specific medical service.
Just a click or two on Google will lead you into the wellness universe. Here’s a sampling:
Institute of Sleep and Wellness
Wellness Institute of America
Naturopathic Wellness
National Wellness Institute
Physicians Health and Wellness Center
Physicians Wellness Group
There’s even a sponsored ad on Google where one can Read more »
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