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The “Expensive, Overused” ER

I’m always fascinated by the complaints that the emergency department is so overused and expensive. I admit that it is used a lot, and that care can seem expensive. But I want to make it clear that the reasons are myriad.

Whenever we in the specialty say that we feel that patients abuse our services, someone in academia reminds us that only a small number of those patients do not actually have serious illnesses. Whether or not that’s true, one of the reasons we are overused is due to none other than other physicians.

I’ve been paying attention lately to the way physician referral patterns happen. I suspect it’s the same in other facilities. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*

Why Medical Care Costs So Much: A Real-Life Example

The cost of medical care is high because the human body is complicated and doctors and patients hate ambiguity. The cost is high because a missed diagnosis can lead to death and a large lawsuit. The cost is high because we have many specialists who view the human body in their own tiny pieces and they want to feel 100 percent correct about their piece. Let me give you a real-life example. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

Comparative Effectiveness Research Costs More Than Most Realize

I just finished our first day at the Principle Investigator Meeting for the launch of the Catheter Ablation Versus Anti-arrhythmic Drug Therapy for Atrial Fibrillation (CABANA) trial in Philadelphia today. The trial is a 3000-patient patient trial performed at 140 centers around the world and jointly sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and industry (St. Jude Medical and Biosense Webster).

The trial will randomize 3000 previously untreated or incompletely treated patients at high risk of cardiovascular complications in the trial to two arms: 1500 patients to catheter ablation as primary therapy of atrial fibrillation and the other 1500 patients to conventional medical therapy with rate control or rhythm control strategies to determine if catheter ablation is superior to medical therapy at reducing total mortality (the primary endpoint). Secondary endpoints of a composite endpoint of mortality, disabling stroke, serious bleeding, or cardiac arrest will also be studied.

If done properly, this study stands to be a landmark trial for the field of cardiac electrophysiology and has huge ramifications for the treatment of patients with atrial fibrillation. Also, it doesn’t take a lot of rocket science to know that the government will be looking closely at the results of this trial to determine which treatment strategy will receive government funding. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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