July 28th, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Research
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While the “patient-centered medical home” may be a good idea, it needs a better name. It sounds like a hospice, reports surgeon and columnist Pauline Chen, M.D. She outlines the initial experiences of practices making the transition to the new practice model.
One problem uncovered by pilot projects is that doctors in transition to the practice model have to spend inordinate amounts of time of things other than patients. And while the patients want and welcome the changes, they face a learning curve too, as they move from seeing just the doctor to working with a team of providers for their care.
Physicians suggested using resources from the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative, a collaborative group set up to help offices make the transition. (New York Times)
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
July 27th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
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FDA researchers have published a study in Pediatrics that analyzed patient records from child and teen ER visits in 2004 and 2005. The investigators are reporting that 70,000 kids each year go to the ER because of issues caused by medical devices.
About a quarter of the injuries were from contact lenses, while the other major contributors were needles, wheelchairs, braces, and obstetric exam tools. The study also looked at the devices most likely to cause hospitalization, and they were found to be mostly invasive devices like ostomy appliances and implanted defibrillators. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
July 27th, 2010 by Emergiblog in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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“Physician Extender.” It sounds like the name of a male enhancement product. It’s a term often used to describe a nurse practitioner or a physician’s assistant. I hate it. It’s insulting.
A nurse practitioner is not an adjunct physician. They do not supplement the care of a physician. They provide essential advance-practice nursing services, services that include diagnosis and provision of medical care.
While some of these services overlap those of medicine, nurse practitioners are not extensions of another profession, they provide care in their own right — as educated, licensed practitioners. Sometimes the only care provider for a community is a nurse practitioner. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Emergiblog*
July 26th, 2010 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
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“Team care” has become a rallying cry for those who think the patient-centered medical home is bad for healthcare reform. Comments on a recent blog post in the New York Times provide a good example of this. When patients get sick, as the argument goes, they want to see their doctor — not some nurse or PA who they don’t know. I agree.
There are a whole bunch of things wrong with all the current focus on team care in the patient-centered medical home. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
July 24th, 2010 by Steve Novella, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, Opinion, Research
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Recently some Science-Based Medicine (SBM) colleagues (David Gorski, Kimball Atwood, Harriet Hall, Rachel Dunlop) and I gave two workshops on how to find reliable health information on the Web. As part of my research for this talk I came across this recent and interesting study that I would like to expand upon further: Quality and Content of Internet-Based Information for Ten Common Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Diagnoses.
The fact that the article focuses on orthopedic diagnoses is probably not relevant to the point of the article itself, which was to assess the accuracy of health information on the Web. They looked at 10 orthopedic diagnoses and searched on them using Google and Yahoo, and then chose the top results. They ultimately evaluated 154 different sites with multiple reviewers for quality of content and also for their HON rating. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
