October 10th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in News
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Crucial drugs are running in short supply and patients are dying as a result.
Much of the problem stem from manufacturing problems that interrupt production. There may be only one or two companies making a drug, and when something happens such as contamination, it creates huge gaps. As a result, there’s been 213 drug shortages so far this year, or two more than all of the previous year.
The shortages have forced hospitals to resort to gray market purchases. These involved third parties that may corner the market on some drugs, and resell them at exorbitant mark-ups. The practice then fuels further shortages.
And this “new” crisis has been occurring for a decade. ACP Internist ran an article 10 years ago that could run in its pages today. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
October 10th, 2011 by MotherJonesRN in True Stories
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Nursing instructors grading Exams in the 1950s. Courtesy of Johns Hopkins Medical Archives on Flickr.
I remember it well. Cramming all night for a nursing exam, taking the test, and hoping for the best. It was a nerve racking experience for the students, but I’ve always wondered what it was like for the instructors. Check out these old gals. Grading papers was time consuming before computerized tests, but I bet they got some pretty entertaining answers.
Miss Jones, Medical Surgical Instructor: “Oh my God, I can’t believe this answer. It’s right up there with the excuse, “my dog ate my care plan.”
Mrs. Smith, OB/GYN Instructor: “I know what you mean. These young people are the future of our profession. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Nurse Ratched's Place*
October 9th, 2011 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in True Stories
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Nothing like experiencing a medical condition first-hand to really help a doctor understand it from the patient’s point of view. After all these years, I had my first (and hopefully last) scintillating scotoma while sitting on the couch playing “words with friends” on my ipad and watching TV. A scotoma is a partial loss of vision in a normal visual field. Scintillate is flashing, sparkles. Put them together and you have moving, flashing sparkles with a blind spot in your eyes.
This visual aura was first described in the 19th century by a Dr. Hubert Airy who had migraine headaches. The visual sparks and flashes are in a zig-zag pattern and they can precede a migraine headache or occur without any pain. The scotoma affects both eyes and closing one or the other does not make it go away. Sometimes Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
October 9th, 2011 by DrWes in Health Policy, Opinion
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If you want to grow the expense of health care delivery in America very quickly, then create two government agencies to do the same job.
From the 28 September 2011 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, we read about a small paragraph in our new health care law that created the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). From that same article, here’s the PCORI’s mission:
PCORI responds to a widespread concern (eds note: emphasis mine. Really? What about the internet?) that, in many cases, patients and their health care providers, families, and caregivers do not have the information they need to make choices aligned with their desired health outcomes.
PCORI funding is set at a total of $210 million for the first 3 years and increases to approximately $350 million in 2013 and $500 million annually from 2014 through 2019. With more than $3 billion to spend between now and the end of the decade, PCORI will support many studies encompassing a broad range of study designs and outcomes that are relevant to patients, aiming to assist people in making choices that are consistent with their values, preferences, and goals.
We should recall that Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
October 9th, 2011 by Medgadget in News
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BI, Inc. a manufacturer of compliance monitoring technology for community offenders, has announced an upgraded version of the company’s BI-TAD alcohol consumption monitoring bracelet.
The BI-TAD is an ankle-worn bracelet which measures an offender’s alcohol consumption levels through vapors and perspiration passing through the skin. The device also features radio-frequency circuitry to detect the presence of the offender in their own home at a given time. The upgraded BI-TAD sensor now includes wireless functionality allowing it to transmit compliance data through the cellular network to a remote base station. The device log can then be checked against an offender’s profile to see if he is adhering to specific curfews or drinking restrictions.
From the press release: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
