The High Cost of Public Reporting
ANISH KOKA MD
In an age where big data is king and doctors are urged to treat populations, the journey of one man still has much to tell us. This is a tale of a man named Joe.
Joseph Carrigan was a bear of a man – though his wife would say he was more teddy than bear. He loved guitar playing, and camp horror movies. Those who knew him well said he had a kind heart, a quick wit and loved cats.
I knew none of these things when I met Joe in the Emergency Department on a Sunday afternoon. I had been called because of an abnormal electrocardiogram – the ER team was worried he could be having a heart attack. ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 18, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: anish_koka Tags: Uncategorized Cardiac surgery High-risk Quality Reporting Source Type: blogs
Building Unity Farm Sanctuary - September 2017
I ’m on a flight to New Zealand as part of my international government service. The 26 hour commute means that even with just two days of meetings in Auckland, I will be gone from the farm for 5 days.I spent Saturday morning cleaning paddocks, emptying manure carts, packing hay bins, filling water troughs, and doing the final repairs/maintenance that will ensure the farm/sanctuary can thrive for a few days while I ’m gone. What happens at the sanctuary over a typical week? Numerous volunteers spend time with animals, providing companionship, exercise and socializationHorse experts bond with Amber, Milly,...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - September 17, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
the cider house RULES!
...is a joke that has surely never been made before!(Sorry John Irving. Maybe if your books weren ' t so f.ing depressing people wouldn ' t need to make jokes about them to laugh through the pain. A Prayer for Owen Meany? More like A Prayer for Owen SADDIE, am I right?)(I ' ll...show myself out.)Anyway. Where was I? Oh right. Today we went apple picking, because it ' s fall and the weather is beautiful and there ' s no way you would know that Hurricaine Irma will be up in our zone by the day after tomorrow. (Though hopefully just a tropical storm by then. Floridian friends, stay safe.) My kids like to pick things (noses, f...
Source: the underwear drawer - September 9, 2017 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Michelle Au Source Type: blogs
Your brain on chocolate
Follow me on Twitter @RobShmerling
Did you know that places where chocolate consumption is highest have the most Nobel Prize recipients? It’s true, at least according to a 2012 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Of course, that could be a coincidence. But is it possible that intelligence or other measures of high brain function are actually improved by the consumption of chocolate? A new review summarizes the evidence and concludes with a resounding “maybe.”
Keeping your brain healthy
When it comes to preserving and improving brain function, let’s face it: we need all the help we can get. With ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - August 16, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Brain and cognitive health Healthy Eating Memory Source Type: blogs
Diversity in HIT – #HITsm Chat Topic
We’re excited to share the topic and questions for this week’s #HITsm chat happening Friday, 8/18 at Noon ET (9 AM PT). This week’s chat will be hosted by Jeanmarie Loria (@JeanmarieLoria) from @advizehealth on the topic of “Diversity in HIT.”
Diversity has positioned itself at the forefront of social awareness for quite some time now, the apparent need for it heightened by the socio-political climate…but what exactly is diversity? Is it offering apples and oranges? Is it a mélange of people with different experiences and perspectives? Is it working to ensure that your practice or firm meets the standards o...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - August 15, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: John Lynn Tags: #HITsm Digital Health Healthcare HealthCare IT Healthcare Social Media #hcldr #HITsm Topics Health IT Diversity Source Type: blogs
4 Ways to Ease Back-to-School and Autumn Anxiety
Middle schoolers aren’t the only ones who feel the jitters as school reopens every year.
Most people I know have trouble as summer draws to a close and autumn begins. All of the stress and transition required to accommodate new schedules, activities, and schools can throw off the limbic system (your emotional center) of even the most grounded creatures.
In fact, Ginny Scully, a therapist in Wales, said in an interview so many clients with feelings of anticipation and nervousness during the last week of August through the first weeks of September that she coined the term “autumn anxiety,” which I’ve written ab...
Source: World of Psychology - August 11, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Therese J. Borchard Tags: Alternative and Nutritional Supplements Anxiety and Panic Mental Health and Wellness Parenting Self-Help Alternative Medicine Anxious Thoughts autumn anxiety Back To School Depression Diet Healthy Eating School stress Source Type: blogs
A Monetary Policy Primer, Part 11: Last-Resort Lending
So far, throughout this primer, I ’ve claimed that central banks have one overarching task to perform: their job, I said, is to “regulate the overall availability of liquid assets, and through it the general course of spending, prices, and employment, in the economies they oversee.” I’ve also shown how, prior to the recent crisis, the Fed pursued this task, sometimes competently, and sometimes ineptly, by means of “open-market operations,” meaning routine purchases (and occasional sales) of short-term Treasury securities.But this picture isn ’t complete, because it says nothing about central banks’ role a...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 8, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs
Emulsifiers: Like detergent to your intestines
If you have been following the Undoctored and Wheat Belly concepts, you are cultivating healthy bowel flora, efforts that include “seeding” your intestines with a high-potency, multi-species probiotic and fermented foods, and nourishing bowel flora with prebiotic fibers. But there are other issues to consider. Today, I discuss the emerging wisdom on emulsifying agents and why we should avoid them to regain healthy bowel flora and overall health.
The capacity for a compound to emulsify a solution varies from minimal to dramatic. Even some natural compounds in whole, unprocessed foods can exert modest emulsifyin...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - August 8, 2017 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Undoctored Wheat Belly Lifestyle bowel flora diabetes Dr. Davis emulsifiers Weight Loss Wheat Belly Total Health Source Type: blogs
How Old is Speech?
This blog takes the position that language, in the sense of two or more people focusing together on a topic, is quite old. Archaeologists, Chomskyites and others tend to put it as a more recent in the human lineage, about 100 thousand or fewer years. I put it at approaching 2 million years. My main grounds for thinking such is based on cooperativeness and the idea that it took a long time to create the verbal environment that we now take for granted.Slow evolutionI noticed anarticle from a couple of weeks back about the “truly” bilingual child, and I came across this passage, “Pediatricians routinely advise parents t...
Source: Babel's Dawn - August 2, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Blair Source Type: blogs
What Congress Would Like With a Radiologist
There are 15 doctors serving as congress members, but come the next special congressional elections, the House of Representatives might be welcoming its first radiologist congressman. Running on the Republican ticket, Stephen Ferrara, MD, a former U.S. Navy chief medical officer, has raised over $250,000 to run for a seat in Arizona ’s 9th Congressional District. He has received support from the American College of Radiology Association’s bipartisan political action committee. Ferrara served for 25 years in the military, and only retired from active duty last year. He then started working at the Phoenix VA Health Care...
Source: radRounds - July 29, 2017 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
Statement for Hearing on “Agricultural Guestworkers: Meeting the Growing Needs of American Agriculture”
PDFhereStatement for the Recordof David Bier of the Cato Institute[1]Submitted to Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security,House Committee on the Judiciary Hearing on“Agricultural Guestworkers: Meeting the Growing Needs of American Agriculture”July 18, 2017Foreign agricultural workers allow farms to expand production, lower prices, and raise incomes for most workers in the United States. Government intervention in the labor market inhibits the ability of farmers to plan the planting and harvesting of crops appropriately, leading to a reduction in production at the start of the season or crops rotting at the en...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 19, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: David Bier Source Type: blogs
Which Is More Efficient: Employer-Sponsored Insurance or Medicaid?
By SAURABH JHA, MD
An old disagreement between Uwe Reinhardt and Sally Pipes in Forbes is a teachable moment. There’s a dearth of confrontational debates in health policy and education is worse off for it.
Crux of the issue is the more efficient system: employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) or Medicaid. Sally Pipes, president of the market-leaning Pacific Research Institute, believes it is ESI. Employers spend 60% less than the government, per person: $3,430 versus $9,130, per person (according to the American Health Policy Institute). Seems like a no brainer.
Pipes credits “consumerist and market-friendly approaches t...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 13, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: at RogueRad Tags: Economics OP-ED employer-sponsored insurance Medicaid Sally Pipes Uwe Reinhardt Source Type: blogs
Foods rich in prebiotic fibers
Prebiotic fibers are essentially the “water” and “fertilizer” that nourish your bowel flora.These are fibers that you ingest but cannot digest, leaving them for microorganisms in the intestines to consume. Some call prebiotic fibers resistant starch since they are impervious to human digestion and digested by microorganisms. Getting prebiotic fibers is crucial to your health and the success of your diet.
Don’t confuse prebiotic fibers with the more commonly recognized cellulose fibers from bran cereals, bran muffins, and whole grains, not too different from wood fiber. Cellulose is not metabolized by you or by bo...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - July 5, 2017 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Undoctored Wheat Belly Lifestyle Source Type: blogs
