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Which Patients Are Happiest With The Care They Receive?

Adults who received care from a medical home in 11 Westernized countries were less likely to report medical errors and were happier with their care, according to a new Commonwealth Fund international survey.

The 2011 survey included more than 18,000 ill adults in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It included people who reported they were in fair or poor health, had surgery or had been hospitalized in the past two years, or had received care for a serious or chronic illness, injury or disability in the past year. The vast majority had seen multiple physicians.

A medical home was defined as patients reporting a regular source of care that knows their medical history, is accessible and helps coordinate care received from other providers. Results were published in Health Affairs.

Sicker adults in the U.S. were the most likely to Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

A Diet Enriched With Olive Oil Is Associated With A Lower Stroke Risk In One Age Group

More on the Mediterranean diet shows that olive oil is the key component associated with less stroke risk in seniors, a French study found.

Olive oil by trix0r via Flickr and a Creative Commons licenseThe Mediterranean diet has already been linked to better cardiovascular effects, so researchers poured it on to assess its link to stroke. A study of people 65 and older in the French cities of Bordeaux, Dijon and Montpellier divided 7,625 residents into three categories of olive oil consumption: no use, moderate use for cooking or dressing, or intensive use for both cooking and dressing. Researchers used plasma oleic acid as an indirect biological marker of oleic acid intake from olive oil. (They acknowledged that it could also stem from use of butter and goose or duck fat.) Results appeared in the Aug. 2 issue of Neurology.

In the study, Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Why The French Don’t Go To The Gym

gettinbigwithrivaroxaban 300x187 Work out in a Gym? The French say Sacre Bleu!Like their counterparts in other first-world countries, French people know about the health benefits of exercise. And French culture has emphasized, even worshipped, good looks (which these days translates to “fit and trim.”)

So it’s surprising that the French avoid fitness centers as vigorously as factory-produced croissants. But they do.

According to the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, just 5.4 percent of French people were members of a fitness club in 2008. That’s substantially less than their counterparts in Italy (9.5 percent), the UK (11.9 percent), and Spain (16.6 percent).

“It appears that more people are sitting in cafes smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee than working out … the French don’t see fitness as a lifestyle,” American-born fitness consultant Fred Hoffman told MSNBC. Hoffman has lived in Paris for two decades. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*

Models Of Healthcare In The Developed World


I heard an interview with T.R.Reid and can’t wait to read his book The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. He traveled the world and compared how developed countries manage health care. He makes the point that all other developed countries have universal coverage. No-one is left out.

He found four basic systems (some named after their founders):
Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

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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