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How To Stop Bleeding: The Combat Application Tourniquet And QuikClot

The Combat Application Tourniquet
The Combat Application Tourniquet Dr. Brad Bennett provided an excellent workshop at the 2010 Wilderness Medical Society annual meeting in Snowmass, Colorado on how to manage severe bleeding, based on his work with the Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care. From time to time,
wilderness medicine practitioners encounter situations of severe bleeding, so this information is essential for anyone responsible for the health and safety of outdoor explorers and adventurers.

In a simple algorithm, we learned that the first attempt to control bleeding is almost always direct hand pressure. This is followed by application of a pressure bandage. If that is successful, the victim then is evacuated. If the pressure bandage does not adequately control bleeding on the torso of the victim, then a hemostatic (stops bleeding) substance is applied prior to evacuation. If bleeding from an arm or leg threatens the victim’s life, a tourniquet may be required. A hemostatic agent that is being used with increasing frequency is QuikClot Combat Gauze. Tourniquets include the Combat
Application Tourniquet (“C-A-T”). Using any of these modalities requires instruction and preparation. Read more »

This post, How To Stop Bleeding: The Combat Application Tourniquet And QuikClot, was originally published on Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..

The New Way To Find A Vein: Vein Lights For IV Access

Here’s how we used to find a difficult vein.  If a floor nurse could not get an IV in, they asked one of their colleagues to try.  If their colleague could not find the impossible-to-locate vein, they contacted an ICU nurse.  If the ICU nurse couldn’t get one, sometimes an ER nurse or a flight nurse would try.  If they still couldn’t get an IV, then I would be paged to ask if they could get an order for an anesthesiologist to try.  And if the anesthesiologist couldn’t figure out how to find a difficult vein, we got a PICC line with the PICC nurse or with the radiologist or I placed a central line if the patient could not wait for a PICC line.
That’s how we used to find a difficult IV.

How do we find one now?  If you’re on the floor, you use one of these cheaper vein lights to find the difficult vein and place your IV.  However, if you work in Happy’s ER, now you have a $6,000 Star Trek looking vein finder for those dehydrated nursing home patients and cracked out meth heads. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

Really? Seven Per Cent Of Physicians Use Video Chat With Patients

Seven percent of U.S. physicians use online video conferencing to communicate with any of their patients, according to a study of physician digital adoption trends.

The study captures a snapshot of technology, including mobile platforms, electronic health records, electronic prescribing and interaction with patients, pharmaceutical and health care market research company Manhattan Research said in a press release.

Psychiatrists and oncologists are more likely to be using video conferencing with patients. But physicians added that reimbursement, liability and privacy are still major barriers to communicating online with patients.

Major findings include: Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

iPhone App Offers Sufficient CT Image Resolution To Diagnose Strokes Remotely

cuqf1gz9.jpg Researchers from the University of Calgary have shown that doctors can make a stroke diagnosis using an iPhone application just as accurately (and faster) than they can on a traditional computer. In a study recently published by Journal of Medical Internet Research, two neuro-radiologists looked at 120 consecutive noncontrast computed tomography (NCCT) scans and 70 computed tomography angiogram (CTA) head scans. One used a diagnostic workstation and the other using Calgary Scientific‘s ResolutionMD Mobile app. The study results showed that using the ResolutionMD app is between 94%-100% accurate in diagnosing acute stroke, compared to a medical workstation.

In addition to accurately diagnosing a stroke, the app was also praised for its ability to handle a large number of images seamlessly and to detect subtle, but potentially critical findings in CT scans. Moreover, the mobile nature of the app gives doctors the ability to analyze and diagnose strokes from practically anywhere. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

A New Way To “Blow Up” Twitter: Tweet Fit App Tweets For You While You Exercise

Tweet_Fit is an amazing idea that is similar in nature to Kickbee. Here are the details:

Developed by a UK design student, the connected gym accessory attaches to the end of a standard dumbbell and sends updates to your Twitter account when you start and stop your workout. Take it offline and it guides you through the perfect curl. Tweet_Fit’s designer points out that it offers a novel way for trainers to keep track of their clients, and can be used to spur healthy competition between friends.

*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*

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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