THCB 20th Birthday Classic: As I’ve always suspected, Health Care = Communism + Frappuccinos
By MATTHEW HOLT
Our 20th birthday continues with a few classics coming out. Back in 2005 I was really cutting a lyrical rug, and would never miss a chance to get that Cambridge training in Marxism into use. This essay about whether health care should be a public or private good has always been one of my favorites, even if I’m not sure Starbucks is still making Frappuccinos. And 18 years later the basic point of this essay remains true, even if many of you will not have a clue who Vioxx or Haliburton were or why they mattered back then!
Those of you who think I’m an unreconstructed commie will correctly suspec...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 15, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Matthew Holt Communism Frappuccinos Source Type: blogs
Reimagining Pain in the Wake of the Opioid Epidemic
The following is a guest article by Vijay Yanamadala, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Sword Health and System Medical Director of Spine Quality at Hartford Healthcare.
In 2017, after years of over prescribing opioids to treat pain, leading to opioid addiction for millions of Americans, opioid dependency was declared a public health emergency.
Since then, the opioid epidemic has only worsened. The COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on people’s mental and physical health, has greatly contributed to a rise in opioid-related deaths.
When I was a medical student in the early 2000s, pain was viewed as a vital sign, like heart rate...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 13, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Communication and Patient Experience Healthcare IT Chronic Pain Hartford HealthCare MSK Musculoskeletal Care opioid crisis Opioid Epidemic Pain Management Patient Care Patient Compliance Physical Therapy PT Reimagining Pain Swo Source Type: blogs
COVID herd immunity: At hand or forever elusive?
By MICHEL ACCAD, MD
With cases of COVID-19 either disappeared or rapidly diminishing from places like Wuhan, Italy, New York, and Sweden, many voices are speculating that herd immunity may have been reached in those areas and that it may be at hand in the remaining parts of the world that are still struggling with the pandemic. Lockdowns should end—or may not have been needed to begin with, they conclude. Adding plausibility to their speculation is the discovery of biological evidence suggesting that prior exposure to other coronaviruses may confer some degree of immunity against SARS-CoV2, a...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 30, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: COVID-19 Health Policy immunity MICHEL ACCAD Pandemic Source Type: blogs
Research Provides No Basis for Pandemic Travel Bans
CONCLUSIONThe pre ‐COVID‐19 research is unanimous that governments cannot expect to rely on travel restrictions to prevent the spread of pandemics similar to influenza. Travel restrictions do not prevent the spread of disease and may only delay it for a few days or weeks if implemented prior to the interna tional transmission of the disease. The Trump administration’s travel restrictions waited until after the virus had already entered the United States, and they exempted many travelers from China, not to mention the rest of the world.[30]The research shows that the Trump administration should have known that ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 15, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
The #myHealthRecord May Not Be Much Use When You Really Need It!
The last few weeks have been pretty sobering in Australia due to the combination of bushfire and drought.
The number of lives lost and property destroyed has been truly awful but additionally, in a number of areas, we have seen a quite devastating loss of communications infrastructure with mobile and fixed line services out and internet access lost.
It was only while this was being reported and we we re hearing about the 3-4000 people who were trapped at Mallacoota in East Gippsland did I realise just how totally useless the #myHR would be in such an emergency.
Without internet access and remembering your complex usern...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - January 4, 2020 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs
Podcast: Procrastination or Mental Health Issues?
Since time was invented, people have fallen into three main categories: Chronically early, on-time, or late. You don’t need mental illness to put things off until the last minute and it doesn’t take anxiety to get things done well ahead of schedule.
But, there’s also no denying that living with mental illness can – and does – impact our ability to be punctual and to accomplish goals. In this episode, Gabe and Michelle discuss the difference between putting things off because we are making bad choices and putting things off because of mental health issues. Listen now!
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“The world...
Source: World of Psychology - July 22, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast Tags: A Bipolar, A Schizophrenic, and a Podcast Personal Schizophrenia Self-Help Source Type: blogs
Podcast: Religion and Mental Illness
From leisure activities to politics to relationships, people tend to be influenced by their religious beliefs. In this episode, Gabe and Michelle discuss the pros and cons of religious influence when it comes to treating mental illness and explore whether it is helpful when trying to reach recovery.
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“They are dead (by suicide) and we are still stigmatizing their behavior.”
– Gabe
Highlights from ‘Religion and Mental Illness’ Episode
[2:00] The intersection of religion and mental illness.
[4:30] How the Jewish faith views mental illness.
[10:00] How Christianity views mental illne...
Source: World of Psychology - July 15, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast Tags: A Bipolar, A Schizophrenic, and a Podcast Depression Ethics & Morality Schizophrenia Spirituality & Health Source Type: blogs
Advancing Trainee Leaders and Scholars (ATLAS): A New Initiative From Academic Medicine
Academic
Medicine recently launched the Advancing Trainee Leaders and Scholars
(ATLAS) initiative, which I
will oversee as the journal’s inaugural Assistant Editor for Trainee
Engagement. So, you might be wondering, who am I and why ATLAS? I hope this
blog post will help answer those questions!
Who am I?
I’m a 3rd-year internal medicine resident at NYU Langone Health in
New York City, and am planning to pursue a career as an academic hospitalist. As
mentioned above, I
will serve as the inaugural Assistant Editor for Trainee Engagement, overseeing
the ATLAS initiative. My term will last until summer 2020, when we ...
Source: Academic Medicine Blog - July 9, 2019 Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Guest Author Tags: ATLAS Featured learners Source Type: blogs
The Phantom of the North
This blog post isn’t about some supernatural Geordie, rather a species of owl that haunts the northern parts of the Americas and Eurasia- the Great Grey Owl (Strix nebulosa). It’s the largest species of owl we have, by length, although ignore the feathers and it isn’t quite so impressive looking, but then which bird is? Also known as the cinereous owl, spectral owl, Lapland owl, spruce owl, bearded owl, and sooty owl.
The Phantom of the North, photo by dB/ at Linton Zoo, Cambs, 7 Apr 2016
The sub-species S. n. nebulosa flies from central Alaska eastward across Canada to south-western Quebec, and south to ...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - April 5, 2019 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
Eliminating Counterfeit Drugs from the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain: Interview with FarmaTrust CEO
Around the world, an estimated 1 million deaths are attributed to substandard and counterfeit drugs. The World Custom Organization’s Anti-Counterfeiting and Piracy Coordinator Christophe Zimmerman has claimed in the past that, “We have more fakes than real drugs in the market.” Inflexible, legacy systems and fragmented technical solutions have stymied improvement to the pharmaceutical supply chain. With new US and European legislation expected to come into effect by early 2019 aiming to increase accountability, a new approach, ideally one connecting all stakeholders, will be required.
Stepping into this opportunity i...
Source: Medgadget - December 19, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Exclusive Informatics Medicine Public Health Society Source Type: blogs
The Future Holds Smart Habitats for People With Special Needs
No matter whether it’s about the problems of aging, vision, hearing, disabilities or other permanent conditions, modern urban environments or residential places often disregard people with special needs. Luckily, technology and smart design might offer solutions on how to make cities more accessible, more inclusive and entirely suited for everyone in the future.
Technology could support smart habitats for people’s real needs
Grandmas, children, pregnant women, Filipinos, French or American people, tall, small, big, round-faced, blond, black-haired or bold – people differ in all kinds of ways, and we could go on for h...
Source: The Medical Futurist - November 1, 2018 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Future of Medicine Healthcare Design Medical Professionals Patients Policy Makers Researchers accessible disability health technology inclusive Innovation people with special needs smart city smart design Source Type: blogs
As I ’ve always suspected, Health Care = Communism + Frappuccinos
By MATTHEW HOLT
Happy 15th birthday THCB! Yes, 15 years ago today this little blog opened for business and changed my life (and at least impacted a few others). Later this week we are going to celebrate and tell you a bit more about what the next 15 years (really?) of THCB might look like. But for now, I’m rerunning a few of my favorite pieces from the mid-2000s, the golden age of blogging. Today I present “Health Care = Communism + Frappuccinos”, one of my favorites about the relationship between government and private sector originally published here on Jan7, 2005. And like the Medicare one from last we...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 12, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Matthew Holt OP-ED 15th Birthday Celebration Commumism Frappuchinos Source Type: blogs
The hemp-eating linen weaver – Linaria cannabina
Don’t often see avian couples together…or more to the point, I don’t often catch them “on film” together. Here are Mr and Mrs Linnet (Linaria cannabina) at their residence in Rampton Pocket Park a few miles north of Cambridge. The bird’s English name comes from the species’ fondness for flax seed from which we make linen, the second part of its scientific name from its liking for hemp seed (Cannabis sativa). The bird is found across Europe into western and central Siberia and is non-breeding in north Africa and southwest Asia.
As you can hopefully see from my, not particularly shar...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - August 4, 2017 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science Source Type: blogs
Big Dreams, Great Job at Minnesota Best Buy for Man with Cerebral Palsy
Mongolia native finds Best Buy job with help from ProAct, leads smartphone app session for disability leaders, selected as national conference panelist (Source: Disabled World Blogs)
Source: Disabled World Blogs - June 16, 2017 Category: Disability Tags: Blogs - Writings - Stories Source Type: blogs
What India’s Teleradiology Market Teaches Us About the Future of Medicine
By SAURABH JHA, MD
Teleradiology has the same effect on radiologists as Lord Voldemort has on Muggles. It’s the feared end point of the commoditization of imaging, with Rajeev in Bangalore outpricing Rajeev in Chicago for reading follow-up CTs for lung nodules.
But despite the fears of U.S. radiologists, their counterparts in India have more pressing things on their mind.
“U.S. radiologists think that Indian radiologists are [itching] to steal their jobs. We have plenty of work in India,” reassured Dr. Sumer Sethi, director of TeleRad Providers of New Delhi.
A tech-savvy blogger, Sethi founded TeleRad Pro...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 10, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: THCB Radiology Saurabh Jha Teleradiology Source Type: blogs
