July 31st, 2011 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Health Policy, Interviews
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This is the first of a three part post addressing the legal concerns of social networking in the health care arena.
Legal expert, David Harlow, Esq., Health Care Attorney and Consultant at The Harlow Group, LLC in Boston, addresses the legal issues.
Q: Barbara: What are the legal implications for doctors, nurses and hospitals engaging in social media?
A: David: Health care providers are concerned about HIPAA privacy issues – HIPAA violations may occur as a result of staff posts, or as a result of patient, family or caregiver posts – as well as potential liability for medical advice provided on line. Physicians and nurses have been sanctioned and fired for privacy breaches via social media, so these are real concerns. Some communications that folks think are OK may in fact be violations of HIPAA or state privacy laws, so great care in training is needed. In addition, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
July 29th, 2011 by EvanFalchukJD in Health Policy, Research
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Sometimes you need a published study to tell you what should be obvious in the first place.
This time, researchers have discovered that:
When physicians have more personalized discussions with their patients and encourage them to take a more active role in their health, both doctor and patient have more confidence that they reached a correct diagnosis and a good strategy to improve the patient’s health.
Really?
But wait, there’s more. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at See First Blog*
July 24th, 2011 by PreparedPatient in Health Tips
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Living Beyond Pain
For people with severe chronic pain like Kelly Young and Teresa Shaffer—both of whom have become patient advocates—coping with agony is a fact of life. Young suffers from rheumatoid arthritis while Shaffer’s pain is linked primarily to another degenerative bone disease.
Chronic pain is one of the most difficult—and common—medical conditions. Estimated to affect 76 million Americans—more than diabetes, cancer and heart disease combined—it accompanies illnesses and injuries ranging from cancer to various forms of arthritis, multiple sclerosis and physical trauma.
Pain is defined as chronic when it persists after an injury or illness has otherwise healed, or when it lasts three months or longer. The experience of pain can vary dramatically, depending in part on whether it is affecting bones, muscles, nerves, joints or skin. Untreated pain can itself become a disease when the brain wrongly signals agony when there is no new injury or discernable other cause. Fibromyalgia—a disease in which pain in joints, muscles and other soft tissues is the primary symptom—is believed to be linked to incorrect signaling in the brain’s pain regions.
Finding a Doctor
The first step to deal with chronic pain is Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
July 22nd, 2011 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Opinion
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Recently, I had the pleasure of being surrounded by brilliant health care thought leaders. First, I delivered a social media presentation at the Eyeforpharma conference. Secondly, I sat in the audience at the Social Communications and Health Care 2011 conference to listen to others present on social media, and participate in a round-table discussion on social media.
It’s clear from the personal discussion that followed with folks from the pharma industry, medical device companies, and hospitals, that they understand the need for social media (or social networking), but they are cautious to dive in.
A few concerns I’ve heard: “social media can be paralyzing,” “senior leadership in the pharma industry is looking for the FDA to make decisions because it’s such a highly regulated industry,” and “it’s still so new, what’s the ROI?” Concerns are real; however there will always be concerns and questions. Sometimes, the best approach is to just dive right in.
The brilliant reason to dive deep into the social media health space is Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
July 19th, 2011 by PreparedPatient in Opinion
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Glenn Laffel, M.D., Ph.D., of Pizaazz hypothesizes about why we often don’t make changes that would benefit our health. He says:
“Somewhere in the course of our daily lives, though, most of us do exhibit behavior that suggests at least some disregard for our health. We don’t change our diet, though we know we should. We don’t floss, take medications as prescribed, or get the screening tests we’re supposed to.”
He knows multiple complex causes exist for this and questions whether being diagnosed with a chronic condition motivates people to improve health behaviors exploring whether the delay between health behaviors and health outcomes contributes to unhealthy behavior. After looking at attrition rates in a diabetes self-management program, he concludes:
“It calls attention to a key distinction behavioral psychologists like to make in explaining human motivation: there’s a difference between awareness of the need to act, and the volition to act.”
Family doctor Kenny Lin, M.D., previously recommended that people “tackle one behavior at a time.” He says: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
