Posts tagged as:

hospital

Are nurse unions using the H1N1 flu pandemic as a bargaining ploy?

November 5, 2009

by Toni Brayer, MD
Only in the United States could a virus like H1N1 bring out the worst in medical politics and greed. We are facing a pandemic that requires coordination, communication and the best of medical practice. But what are we getting? Strikes, lawsuits and anything but putting patients first.
The California Nurse Association (CNA), is [...]

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Clostridium difficile infection is spreading from the hospital to the community

November 5, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Charles Bankhead, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Clostridium difficile infection has spread from the hospital to the community but has proved manageable thus far.
From 1991 to 2005, the incidence of community-acquired C. difficile in Olmsted County, Minn., quadrupled but still remained less common than the hospital-acquired gastrointestinal infection, Sahil Khanna, MD, [...]

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Who’s most likely to spread infection in the hospital?

November 2, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Michael Smith, MedPage Today North American Correspondent
Good hand hygiene among healthcare workers is an important factor in preventing the spread of disease, but exactly how important depends on an individual’s job, researchers said.
In a mathematical model, so-called “peripatetic” workers — such as therapists or radiologists — were most likely [...]

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Is the impending physician shortage worse than we thought?

October 31, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Charles Bankhead, MedPage Today Staff Writer
The physician workforce in the U.S. is growing smaller and younger, according to data from the Census Bureau, but conflicting estimates make it difficult to determine just how many doctors are out there — and how many the nation will need.
The census survey showed 67,000 [...]

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Health care reform needs to improve physician satisfaction

October 30, 2009

Of the myriad of proposals meant to change the health care system, including switching to electronic records, paying for performance, and adhering to evidence-based standards, very little attention is being paid to how they will be implemented, and the unintended consequences that may arise.
Annie Brewster, an urgent care provider in Boston, outlines this in a [...]

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Incentives promote unnecessary, excessive tests in the ER

October 28, 2009

A professor of medicine visits the emergency department with a seemingly routine case of shingles, and gets the million dollar workup.
Writing in the Washington Post, Jack Coulehan describes how he was subjected to neurology and ophthalmology consults, several MRIs, and a CT scan. All for shingles, a disease that is diagnosed clinically, and treated [...]

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How teamwork can improve patient care

October 26, 2009

by Toni Brayer, MD
I spent the entire day in meetings today. One would think that is a boring or unproductive way for a physician to spend time, however these meetings made me proud to be a doctor and proud of my colleagues in medicine.
The morning was spent with nurses, respiratory therapists and quality experts who [...]

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Discussing end-of-life care in the ICU and saving Medicare money

October 25, 2009

by Marya Zilberberg, MD, MPH
I think by now there is not a person in the US who cannot quote at least approximately how much we spend annually on healthcare. Fewer people appreciate that nearly 1/3 of this $2.2 trillion bill is eaten by hospitalizations, amounting to about $680 billion. Although the data in the diagram below [...]

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H1N1 rapid tests: Poor sensitivity

October 24, 2009

Originally published in Journal Watch Infectious Diseases
by Stephen G. Baum, MD
Rapid tests for seasonal influenza generally have relatively low sensitivity; their sensitivity for detecting the 2009 H1N1 virus seems even worse.
Many respiratory pathogens can produce an influenza-like illness. With a sensitive and specific rapid test for influenza, the onset of outbreaks could be established and [...]

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When compassion meets progress in American health care

October 24, 2009

by Edwin Leap, MD
Does anyone realize that the chaos of modern American health-care is not a tragedy, but a triumph? We’re so busy trying to fix what isn’t broken and ignoring what is, so busy casting stones and casting doubts that we are blind to what we have.
I have practiced medicine in this labyrinth [...]

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Doctors spend more time on social work than medicine

October 23, 2009

Originally published in HCPLive.com
by Alan Berkenwald, MD
William Osler is known as the Father of American Medicine. He was a world class physician, the “Doctor’s Doctor” – as physicians all along the Atlantic seaboard would sent their family members to him.
He wrote the first American medical textbook. He was so good, he was recruited from [...]

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When patients receive too much radiation from CT scans by mistake

October 21, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Crystal Phend, MedPage Today Senior Staff Writer
Reports of stroke patients who were accidentally exposed to eight times the normal radiation dose during diagnostic CT scans at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles are prompting safety warnings and soul searching among radiologists nationwide.
Over an 18-month period, 206 patients at the [...]

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The numbers behind young, healthy people dying from H1N1 flu

October 20, 2009

Originally published in Insidermedicine
Young, otherwise healthy people who contract H1N1 flu can rapidly deteriorate into a critically ill state in a manner that is eerily reminiscent of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, according to research published in the November 4 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association and presented at the annual [...]

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Does robotic surgery for prostate cancer help patients?

October 19, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Peggy Peck, MedPage Today Executive Editor
Men who opt for minimally invasive prostate surgery — often with a helping hand from a robot — are twice as likely to have genitorurinary complications as men who have a traditional prostatectomy.
That finding is especially troubling because the use of robotic-assisted minimally invasive [...]

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What having the H1N1 flu feels like

October 19, 2009

CNN’s Sanjay Gupta went to Afghanistan to cover a story, and got infected with H1N1 influenza.
His blog post on the experience is quite eye-opening, and consistent with the cases that I’ve seen here. Much has been made on how the virus attacks younger patients with healthy immune systems. Dr. Gupta was previously healthy, [...]

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Poll: How can we increase the supply of donor kidneys?

October 19, 2009

The United States has almost 60,000 patients with end-stage renal disease who need a kidney transplant. Every year, almost 4,000 people will die waiting for that transplant.
How can we increase the supply of donor kidneys?
Though some economists suggest a legal organ donation “marketplace,” where kidneys can be legally bought and sold, opponents envision the wealthy [...]

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