A Not Very Good Proposal to Reduce Emergency Room Visits
By JIM PURCELL
A recent article posits that an Anthem company, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia (BCBSGA), is poised to “punish” its members for “unnecessary” emergency room (ER) visits by charging subscribers the entire bill for unnecessary ER visits. This is a variation on a theme which has been playing out in virtually every state and every insurer: how do we reduce the number of unnecessary emergency room visits?
Of course, expecting a lay person to be able to parse out what is medically necessary for ER care and what is not is probably expecting too much. Example: I’m playing softball, slide i...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 9, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized ER Visits Jim Purcell Urgi-Care Center Source Type: blogs
Weird Test Results
We all get these standard medical tests - like a colonoscopy.... I get regular chest x-rays... Why? Because back in the dark ages of my thryoid cancer, they saw a ' thingy ' in my lungs. It was a benign thingy but they wanted annual chest x-rays to check on it to make sure it didn ' t do anything.So after over 25 years of annual chest x-rays for the thingy, I was told they no longer needed annual chest x-rays for thingy ' s, they would wait until any symptoms occurred. Then, as luck would have it, I was put on methotrexate for my rheumatoid. As there is a possibility of lung problems caused by methotrexate, I was put back ...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - June 2, 2017 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: cancer bus doctor questions test results Source Type: blogs
Fractures are Not the Only Bone Injury
A ballplayer had jumped and stretched for the ball but missed. Descending toward the ground, he put out his right hand to protect his face from hitting the pavement. The pain in the hypothenar eminence and lateral wrist was immediate, but he thought he could shake it off. A few hours later, though, he came in with pain in the lateral wrist, difficulty with full supination, inability to bear weight on the ulnar-deviated wrist when placing his hand on the bed and trying to push himself up, and a superficial abrasion on the hypothenar eminence.Hypothenar eminence sports injuries are well known to be the cause of pisifor...
Source: Lions and Tigers and Bears - June 1, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Soon We Might Get a Real-Time, Panoramic View of the Human Body ’s Insides
What if you could view the insides of the human body in high-resolution? A group of researchers at Duke University and California Institute of Technology have created technology that allows us to examine the body inside-out.The Optical Imaging Laboratory has developed a technique called single-impulse photoacoustic computed tomography, or SIP-PACT, that can view up to five centimeters into biological tissue with “sub-millimeter-level resolution” while enabling functional information from the conventional optical microscopy.MRI takes seconds to minutes to generate an image, and over time, x-rays can transmit too much ra...
Source: radRounds - May 26, 2017 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
I want to help him, but I need to know more about him
I pause in front of the door. On the other side, you all wait. A spouse, sons and daughters, sometimes with their own small children in tow. Today, it’s your husband and father you have come for. Yesterday it was someone else’s mother. You have come from near and far, across the street and the country. Your weary eyes are unable to mask your sadness. Over the past week, you have witnessed a steady stream of nurses, residents, phlebotomists and x-ray techs file in and out of his room. Your dad has withstood a barrage of insults to his body. Radiation to his chest for daily X-rays. Needles piercing skin and veins for IVs...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 22, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/jeremy-topin" rel="tag" > Jeremy Topin, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Intensive care Source Type: blogs
Will This Wearable Dosimeter Tell How Much Radiation We ’re Exposed To?
How much radiation passes through our body on a daily basis? Up until recently, that seemed like one of life ’s great unanswered questions. California-based Mirion Technologies has recently launched Dosime, a wearable dosimeter that can measure the amount of ionizing radiation a person experiences on an average day.Radiation is present in many aspects of everyday life. From microwaves to the TSA security scanners at the airport, it ’s nearly impossible to hide from it. There are two types of radiation: ionizing and non-ionizing. Electric and magnetic fields, radio waves, microwaves, ultraviolet, and infrared are classi...
Source: radRounds - May 19, 2017 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
‘Radiating Shoe Sales’
By: Vanessa Burrows Since the discovery of X-rays in the late 19th century, the technology has enhanced health care in a variety of ways. Like many cutting-edge scientific developments, however, it also has inspired uses of uncertain therapeutic value. That … Continue reading → (Source: FDA Voice)
Source: FDA Voice - May 18, 2017 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Interview with Dave Liebl, Heraeus Medical Components
Heraeus Medical Components (HMC) is known for its state-of-the-art solutions delivered to the global medical device industry. The company boasts seven production sites across the USA, Europe, Asia, and Central America, designing and manufacturing key components for leading medical devices. Recently, Medgadget readers may have seen the keynote address at Medtec Europe delivered by HMC’s VP of Advanced Technologies, Jens Troetzschel.
Medgadget editor Tom Peach recently spoke with Dave Liebl from Heraeus to discuss some of the company’s innovative medical device products that assist surgeons every day.
Tom Peach, M...
Source: Medgadget - May 18, 2017 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tom Peach Tags: Exclusive News Source Type: blogs
PACS and the Grim Reaper
No, it ' s not what you think, so don ' t bring out your dead. You ' ll get the joke later on.I ' ve maintained this blog for over 12 years, believe it or not. Despite my years of whining about PACS, I still love the concept, and to varying degrees, many of the products out there. Some I can praise, some I complain bitterly about, and some I have left alone because of the more and more complex nature of the hats I ' m wearing in my old age.It is no exaggeration to say thatPACS has changed everything about what we do in Radiology. My First Law of PACS distills this to its essence:I. PACS IS the Radiology DepartmentThis...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - May 16, 2017 Category: Radiology Source Type: blogs
Infervision ’s Artificial Intelligence Software Detects Suspected Tumors on Standard Imaging Scans
Infervision, a Chinese company, has been integrating deep learning artificial intelligence to the practice of radiology in order to improve the detection rates of early stage tumors. The technology relies on analyzing tens of thousands of X-rays and CT scans that have been used to perform a diagnosis and to use that base of knowledge to evaluate future scans. The software is already being used at a number of Chinese treatment centers and the company claims that its X-ray capability has “achieved extremely high accuracy so that it is close to that of a deputy chief physician in the diagnosis of cardiothoracic diseases...
Source: Medgadget - May 16, 2017 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Informatics Radiology Source Type: blogs
Summary Of The Health Budget Changes In The Budget. You Are Stuck With A myHR!
Budget Outcome - 2017-18
HEALTH
The government is set to fully fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme beyond 2019 in Tuesday's Budget.
The Australian reports the NDIS funding will be the centrepiece social policy, set to be revealed when the government outlines its spending plans tonight.
Medicine prices will fall and Medicare rebates for doctor's visits will rise.
Patients will be pushed onto generic versions of their medicine to save the government money.
The price of X-rays and scans could rise with the government poised to abandon an election pledge to index the Medicare rebates for these services.
...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - May 9, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David More MB PhD FACHI Source Type: blogs
Scopis Introduces Mixed Reality to Simplify Surgical Navigation
Scopis, a surgical navigation company, announced a mixed reality surgical navigation system that uses the Microsoft HoloLens for spinal surgery applications.
It combines current surgical navigation technologies with Microsoft’s augmented reality headset to show surgeons where they’re drilling into in real-time, without shifting their gaze away from the surgical field. The surgeon wears the HoloLens, and sees both the patient and a superimposed augmented reality image. The display overlays the planned placements of screws directly onto the patient and shows the surgeon how to correct both the positionin...
Source: Medgadget - May 8, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Ben Ouyang Tags: Neurosurgery Orthopedic Surgery Source Type: blogs
Does PACS Make Radiologists Feel Lonely?
The Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) has streamlined protocol and creates comprehensive and meticulous images — allowing radiologists to interpret scans with more precision than ever before. However, the system has also created barriers between radiologists and other clinicians and decreased communication among clinicians of various specialties. Some radiologists consider PACS to be a threat to morale and livelihood. According to Robert Wachter, MD, author ofThe Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine ’s Computer Age, the computerization of medicine has its advantages and disadvan...
Source: radRounds - May 8, 2017 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
AI Can Now Diagnose Tuberculosis
A tuberculosis blood or skin test is limited in detecting the progress of the infection, and there is a lack of radiologists with the expertise to identify and diagnose TB on chest images. However, all of that is set to change since a recent studypublishedinRadiologyfound a way to apply deep learning with x-ray interpretation to sharpen the accuracy of TB detection. According to the World Health Organization, TB is considered to be one of the top 10 causes of death. In 2015, 10.4 million people contracted the disease and 1.8 million were unable to survive it. TB is prevalent in developing countries such as India, China, ...
Source: radRounds - May 8, 2017 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
