June 22nd, 2010 by Davis Liu, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
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Boston Celtics basketball player Kendrick Perkins injured his knee during the NBA Finals against the Lakers when he landed awkwardly. Unable to weightbear, he left Game 6 not to return for the following pivotal Game 7.
Based on his mechanism of injury and his physical examination, his trainer reported that he tore his medial collateral ligament (MCL) as well as the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL). More amazingly, this was done without the help of a MRI. Since Perkins was unable to play the final game, there was no urgent medical need to expedite the test, as regardless of the result his season was already done.
How do doctors know what’s wrong without X-ray vision or an imaging test? (Note that Perkins did get a X-ray, but X-rays generally don’t show ligament injuries.) Is it guessing? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Saving Money and Surviving the Healthcare Crisis*
June 17th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
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Felasfa Wodajo, an orthopedic oncologist in Virginia, recently took his iPad into the operating theater to see how it performs in such an environment.
Being one of the editors at iMedicalApps, Dr. Wodajo just published his initial findings and they bode a rather bright clincial future for the iPad, and tablets in general.
SOURCE: iMedicalApps: Test driving the iPad in the hospital Operating Room…
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
June 17th, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Opinion
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Apparently the New England Journal of Medicine was listening yesterday when I suggested to an audience in Chicago that the way to a doctor’s heart is through his smartphone. The NEJM This Week iPhone App went live this morning on iTunes and it’s worth a look.
The App offers four pages covering articles, images, audio and video. According to Toby Plewak, NEJM’s Manager of Product Development, the article page covers most everything available through the print/web version as well as all of the “online first” (early release) articles for the current week. The only articles excluded are those that can’t be delivered effectively on the iPhone.
I just listened to the NEJM This Week audio summary and it’s beautiful (I know what I’ll be doing during my drives to the Texas Medical Center.) Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
June 16th, 2010 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, True Stories
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Why do we physicians chart the way we do? Hopefully, we do it perfectly well and have no concerns at all. But where I practice emergency medicine, we are approaching maximum inefficiency in charting.
It all became much clearer when we started using our new EMR system. Let me make it clear, I’m not against EMR. In fact, typing and templates work better for me than dictating. My dictations were usually a mine field of blanks and misunderstood words.
Furthermore, if I wanted to use it, we have a new voice recognition dictation system in addition to our templated chart. Though admittedly, the voice recognition program clearly hates some of my partners, as evidenced by the way they grasp the screen and yell at it (‘Chest Pain, not west rain!’) and by its inexplicable use of profanity in the occasional chart.
But I digress. The problem as I see it is the evolution of the medical record. Why does the medical record exist? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
June 15th, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Opinion
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If you’ve come to believe that physicians and social networks aren’t a good combination, check out this teaser from the up-and-coming physician network, iMedExchange.
While facilitated physician networks have been a difficult sell, iMedExchange appears to be delivering a fresh, expandable, next-generation platform that will offer real value for discerning doctors.
iMedExchange went into expanded beta beginning yesterday. If you were an iMed user before, watch your inbox and give it a test drive. Keep an eye on this one. I’ve had a look. It’s very nice and I understand the best is yet to come.
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
Boston Celtics basketball player Kendrick Perkins injured his knee during the NBA Finals against the Lakers when he landed awkwardly. Unable to weightbear, he left Game 6 not to return for the following pivotal Game 7.
