September 22nd, 2011 by Jessie Gruman, Ph.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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Every day in the U.S. countless experts discuss plans and policies to contain the cost of health care using words and concepts that run counter to our (the public’s) experiences with finding and using care. Most of us ignore the steady stream of proposals until one political party or the other crafts an inflammatory meme that resonates with our fears of not getting what we need. At which point, we leap into action online, in town meetings and in the voting booth. As Uwe Reinhardt noted in his Kimball Lecture at the recent 2011 ABIM Foundation Forum, researchers and policy makers “cannot even discuss the cost-effectiveness of health care without being called Nazi(s).”
Our discomfort with the array of private and public sector proposals to improve health care quality while holding down costs should not be surprising. Most of us hold long-standing, well-documented beliefs about health care that powerfully influence our responses to such plans. For example, many of us believe that:
… if the doctor ordered it or wants to do it, we must need it.
… talking about less expensive treatments makes us feel that others are trying to bargain-shop our care and that scares us.
… clinical care does not vary much among our own doctors and hospitals.
… when we talk about the “quality” of health care we are referring to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
September 22nd, 2011 by Dinah Miller, M.D. in Opinion
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I’m posting this because Roy fell asleep at the wheel and missed the Xanax article on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times. In “Abuse of Xanax Leads a Clinic to Halt Supply,” Abby Goodnough writes about a clinic where they’ve stopped prescribing Xanax because to many people are abusing it. Goodnough writes:
“It is such a drain on resources,” said Ms. Mink, whose employer, Seven Counties Services, serves some 30,000 patients in Louisville and the surrounding region. “You’re funneling a great deal of your energy into pacifying, educating, bumping heads with people over Xanax.”
Because of the clamor for the drug, and concern over the striking number of overdoses involving Xanax here and across the country, Seven Counties took an unusual step Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*
September 21st, 2011 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Research
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Once of the major recent advances in trauma care has been the evolution of topical substances that can be applied to wounds in order to limit or stop hemorrhage (bleeding). This is very important in wilderness medicine, because uncontrolled bleeding is a leading cause of death from injuries. When the bleeding site can be approached in such a manner as to stop the bleeding, then something very valuable may possibly be done for the patient.
In article entitled “Comparison of Celox-A, ChitoFlex, WoundStat, and Combat Gauze Hemostatic Agents Versus Standard Gauze Dressing in Control of Hemorrhage in a Swine Model of Penetrating Trauma,” Lanny Littlejohn, MD and colleagues used an animal model of a complex groin injury with a small penetrating wound, followed by completely cutting the femoral artery and vein, to determine whether there was any benefit to one or another hemostatic (stops bleeding) agent in comparison to each other and to standard gauze dressing. To cut to the chase (no pun intended), the results showed that no difference was found among the agents with respect to initial cessation of bleeding, rebleeding, and survival. In this study, WoundStat was inferior with respect to initial cessation of bleeding and survival when compared to Celox-A.
The authors point out how important it is to Read more »
This post, Article Compares Hemostatic Agents: Are There Any Differences?, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
September 21st, 2011 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Opinion
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Just yesterday, I put up a post about the recent birth control pill recall. This recall is a big deal – millions of women are potentially impacted, and the adverse effect – an unplanned pregnancy – is very significant.
I knew women taking these pills would be very worried, and wanted very much to do more than just spit out the press release from the FDA. I wanted to both reassure women and give them information that they could use other than just a link and a phone number. I also needed to figure out how I would be handing the recall in my own practice. So I combined the two and posted what I’ll be telling my patients to do if they find that they are taking a recalled pill pack.
As soon as the post went up, I got worried.
What if the advice I was giving my patients was not what other docs might do for their patients? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*
September 21st, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in News, Opinion
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MedPage Today reports:
Mehmet Oz, MD, the Columbia University thoracic surgeon who gained fame first in books and more recently with his syndicated television show, has run afoul of the Food and Drug Administration with his report about levels of arsenic in popular brands of apple juice.
The FDA called the report “irresponsible and misleading” and another TV doc, ABC’s Richard Besser, MD, accused Oz of fear-mongering.
Fox News’ Dr. Manny Alvarez rushes to Oz’s defense, though:
“I’m very proud of Dr. Oz for his report today on potentially dangerous levels of arsenic found in certain brands of apple juice, which may classify some of them as unsuitable for consumption. He’s sounding the alarm for an issue that I believe needs to be brought to attention.
…
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
