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Sizable Mortality Risk Differences for Healthy versus Unhealthy Lifestyles in Later Life
In conclusion, reported adherence to a healthy lifestyle is associated with reduced risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality. Adherence to all four lifestyle factors resulted in the strongest protection. Link: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-023-04247-9 (Source: Fight Aging!)
Source: Fight Aging! - October 27, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

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Health systems’ awareness of its impact on climate change is growing, but action is lagging — policies that can accelerate decarbonization are needed.        (Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog)
Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog - October 26, 2023 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Joanne Kenen Source Type: blogs

Study: Playing board games like Chess, Mahjong, Go, helps slow cognitive decline as we age (but with clear differences in neurobiology and function)
Conclusions: Traditional board games may slow global cognitive decline and improve the quality of life in elderly subjects. Different games have varying impacts on specific cognitive domains, possibly mediated by functional and biological factors. The Study in Context: Study: For better memory and thinking skills at age 70 (and beyond), play cards and board games from age 11 How learning changes your brain Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging The post Study: Playing board games like Chess, Mahjong, Go, helps slow cognitive decline as we age (but with clear differences in neurobio...
Source: SharpBrains - October 25, 2023 Category: Neuroscience Authors: SharpBrains Tags: Brain/ Mental Health Education & Lifelong Learning aging Alzheimer’s Disease BDNF chess cognition cognitive decline Cognitive-impairment dementia Go Mahjong neurobiology primary prevention recreational games secondary preve Source Type: blogs

“Doomscrolling” – Call the doctor!
by MIKE MAGEE Exactly 1 year ago, mental health experts alerted the medical world to their version of an assessment scale for yet another new condition – “doomscrolling.” As defined in the article, “Constant exposure to negative news on social media and news feeds could take the form of ‘doomscrolling’ which is commonly defined as a habit of scrolling through social media and news feeds where users obsessively seek for depressing and negative information.” No one can deny a range of legitimate concerns. Faced with continued background noise from the pandemic, add global warming, renegade AI, and...
Source: The Health Care Blog - October 25, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Medical Practice Democracy Doomscrolling Nurses Physicians Source Type: blogs

Enhanced mRNA Vaccine May Work Intranasally.
Researchers at MIT have developed an enhanced mRNA vaccine system that can elicit a greater immune response at lower doses. The vaccine technology is so potent that it may be useful for intranasal COVID-19 vaccines. This would have the benefit of localized immunity in the nasal mucus membranes that could kill the SARS-CoV-2 virus before it enters the body. The system includes an mRNA strand that encodes the viral spike protein, as with earlier generations of such vaccines, but in this case the strand also encodes for an immune protein called C3d. This protein typically binds to antigens, such as the spike protein, in the b...
Source: Medgadget - October 23, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Medicine Public Health covid mit SARS-CoV-2 Source Type: blogs

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An ongoing legal challenge is threatening the guarantee of free preventive care in the Affordable Care Act.        (Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog)
Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog - October 20, 2023 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: MaryBeth Musumeci, Sara Rosenbaum Source Type: blogs

Worldwide Trends in Healthy versus Unhealthy Remaining Life Expectancy at 60
Human life expectancy has been trending upwards, slowly, for a very long time. Life expectancy at birth is influenced by a great many factors that have little to do with aging, and so is much less interesting than, say, life expectancy at 60. At present, that number increases by one year with every passing decade. This has been the case in an environment in which essentially nothing was being done to deliberately target underlying mechanisms of aging. The trend is an incidental side-effect of, most likely, (a) better life-long control over the burden of infectious disease, and (b) general improvements in the ability to tre...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 20, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

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For the first time, CMS has proposed coordinated coding and payment changes to advance health equity goals that will improve access to behavioral health care.        (Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog)
Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog - October 19, 2023 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Lauren Testa Source Type: blogs

Diversity and inclusion: Go beyond performative actions
The performative actions of institutions, corporate America, academia, and hospitals among other entities have made me highly dislike the acronyms DEI, EDI, DEIB, or whatever other fancy acronyms the C-suiters come up with. I remember hearing from a colleague that their institution did not want the words “anti-racism” included in the title of one of Read more… Diversity and inclusion: Go beyond performative actions originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - October 19, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Public Health & Policy Source Type: blogs

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and why medical professionals should care
On October 7, Hamas, a terrorist group, launched an unprecedented assault against Israeli civilians. Thousands have been confirmed killed, while hundreds have been taken hostage. Israel has retaliated by pounding Gaza with rockets, killing thousands more Palestinian civilians. This is the most severe escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in decades. The death toll continues to Read more… The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and why medical professionals should care originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - October 18, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Policy Public Health & Policy Source Type: blogs

How Do You See Health Data Utilities Evolving? Where are We Today and Where is it Heading?
Health data utility is still a fairly new concept in the world of healthcare. But as we talk about it, more and more HIE organizations have started to use it and the concept has been embraced by many. This naturally made it a hot topic at the recent Civitas Conference. We gathered up some of our brilliant members of the Healthcare IT Today Community to get their perspective. How are health data utilities evolving? Where are we now with it and where do we see it heading? We’ve compiled their answers in this video below! Lindsey Ferris, DrPH, Senior Interoperability and Public Health Director at PointClickCare –...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - October 18, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Grayson Miller Tags: Analytics/Big Data C-Suite Leadership Health IT Company Healthcare IT Interoperability Allen Abshire Angie Bass Briljent CIvitas Civitas 2023 Deven McGraw eHealthExchange Grayson Miller Health Data Utility HealtHIE Nevada Inv Source Type: blogs

Bringing words to a knife fight: Why we ’ re losing the health care war
Every week, I explore with great interest the commentaries, viewpoints, perspectives, podcasts, social media posts, and other dispatches from my peers and colleagues who are seeking to explain and influence the state of both the health care professions and our systems of care. With each reading, I find modern parallels to the published words of Read more… Bringing words to a knife fight: Why we’re losing the health care war originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - October 18, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Public Health & Policy Source Type: blogs

Aspects of Social Determinants of Health: Collecting Data
This article shows how organizations are collecting it. Andrew Eye, CEO of the healthcare data science company ClosedLoop, estimates that about 15% of physicians collect SDoH-related data from patients and use it to assess their needs. The percentage is much higher in some areas. Data can be spotty, according to Eye, who says for instance that data from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) often lacks racial identifications. He also says that collecting and processing the data is labor-intensive, because it can be hard to persuade patients to talk openly about financial and logistical problems. At the institu...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - October 18, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Analytics/Big Data C-Suite Leadership Communication and Patient Experience Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System Andrew Eye Arick Morton Carta Healthcare Case Management Casetivity CDC Clinical Archictecture Cl Source Type: blogs

How busy clinicians can advocate for fossil fuel divestment
As general pediatricians whose intention is to promote health and wellness in children and youth, we witness the direct and indirect health effects of increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The climate crisis looms as an existential threat to humans and many other species. Due to their size, metabolism, developmental stages, and behaviors, children, particularly those Read more… How busy clinicians can advocate for fossil fuel divestment originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - October 17, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors:
The following is a guest article by Tina Manoharan, Global Lead of Data Science & AI at Philips “Don’t overwhelm me with more data. Help me get more value out of the data I already have.”  This feedback from a physician has stuck with me ever since I gave one of my first public presentations on the opportunities of AI and big data in healthcare, many years ago. Today, with the groundswell of interest in generative AI, it’s a message that seems more pertinent than ever.  Much has already been written about how generative AI can boost healthcare innovation, in times when healthcare professionals are under more ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - October 17, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: AI/Machine Learning C-Suite Leadership Health IT Company Healthcare IT AI Integration Clinical Workflow Generative AI People Centered Approach Philips Tina Manoharan Source Type: blogs