My friend and buddy for Halloween night. If it doesn’t work out, there is always this, Happy Goblins !! A Haunting I will go...
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Lines in The Sand
Stanford University The San Jose Mercury News Reports, “Stanford University opens new stem cell building, bucking federal restrictions” Across the nation, embryonic stem cells live in legal limbo, their fate uncertain with a lawsuit challenging public funding for research. But they are cherished celebrities at Stanford University's School of Medicine, which on Wednesday inaugurated a new home for them at the Lorry I. Lokey Stem Cell Research Building, now the largest stem cell facility in the nation. "The stem cell revolution has been launched in California," Bob Klein of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine declared at the afternoon ceremony....
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Health Train Express The Book
is now available for the cost of an email to me requesting it. This edition covers January 2010 through October 26, 2010. It is in a pdf format. Get one quickly…THEY WILL GO FAST. The first 100 will also get a free picture of the author. Wait too long, and this may happen. del.icio.us Tags: health train,train wreck...
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
A Short and Useful Life
It’s nice to honor someone before they pass away and that is the subject of this mornings’ blog. I first met her in 2003 or 2004. I don’t really remember the exact year. It was in a time when I did not know someone like her even existed. For me it was an invigorating change in semi-retirement. She would fill many hours of each day. She was a breath of fresh air in my life, however at times I did not know how to communicate with her, and she often misunderstood my intentions. She was a ‘new age being’, one who many others also discovered. However when ever I knocked on her door, I would only have to whisper secret words and she would invite me in once again. She rarely tired of my visits, she primped for my visits, and at times would not let me visit as she dressed in some...
Monday, October 25, 2010
Accountable Care Organizations
This is the new buzz word sweeping through the MBA, MHA, and HHS. So, who is accountable to whom, and what? You may watch a webinar or attend a conference in Los Angeles, California on October 25-27 2010 focused on Accountable Care Organizations. There are the usual number of talking heads including CEOs of large medical groups, the head of the California Association of Physician Groups. Notably absent is the California Medical Association, which represents physicians. It makes me wonder if CMA was even invited… If you or your group wish to present at the next National Meeting You can apply here: Know your ‘enemy’ make them your friends, be aware...
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Health Train Express Schedule & Health 2.0
Health Train will be stopping twice a day to publish an article in the morning and then in the evening. Don’t forget to check twice each day. The AM edition will cover scientific breakthroughs both in basic science and clinical science as well as HIT which will impact how medicine will be practiced in the 21st century. The PM edition will continue to cover HIT and policy reform as well as appropriate humorous subjects. This morning the train stops briefly to review the messages at Health 2.0, just held the past week in San Francisco. The street is big on all the flurry and buzz about medicine and HIT. Although I have never attended a Health 2.0 shout out, I have managed to follow them on the web. Without judging...
Friday, October 22, 2010
I Work So Hard !!
Sorry I had to interrupt my regular programming to bring you this hysterical video. We docs work so hard !! That’s what you think. Call Me Senator from RightChange on Vimeo.Workin so hard ! THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL MESSAGE ! It is a politically correct message . ...
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Heather Gold is Allowed to Suck
Maybe you think Health Train has gone off his rails. The relevance here is about malpractice. This video should inject some ‘humor’ about a not so humorous part of our lives. At times the “law” attempts to make impossible contracts work. Perhaps the liability is a two way street. Why does it always land on the physicians’ plate? img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('5b46d0d9-07c5-4d07-a333-b16d58386409'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkDcmbHM6Hit0V2OW8iAkK0O5Bl0Yrlg0IhMSgseyURwNxclsYHKMA0XJ4WmYqLdBWOXNJDOmFCwJgED-yUVHWPmTP8Tzwtf-mYbra2LB5I5IovUbNtYlCHzGvmK0A2eD2an16olYKBS8/?imgmax=800" style="border-style:...
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
CMS Statistics Meaningless according to study published in the Archives of Surgery
If a surgical procedure is in your future, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would like to make your life a little easier by helping you choose a hospital with a good safety record. Its Hospital Compare website allows you to search hospitals in your area and see whether they do a good job of some seemingly important things, like giving patients antibiotics when they’re supposed to and heading off dangerous blood clots. But don’t put too much stock in the Hospital Compare ratings. According to a study being published in Tuesday’s edition of Archives of Surgery, patients who went under the knife in the lowest-scoring hospitals did just as well as patients who were treated in the best hospitals. “Currently available information on the Hospital Compare website will not...
Friday, October 15, 2010
Resistance is NOT FUTILE
Unlike the Borg of Star Trek humanity (at least in the United States) is resisting becoming total automatons by following our governmental policy proclaiming it knows what is best for us. Things are not as bad as they seem. Yesterday a Florida judge proclaimed: Thursday that a legal challenge to the new health care law by officials from 20 states could move forward ...," The New York Times reports "The White House downplayed the ruling Thursday." Stephanie Cutter, an assistant to the president for special projects, wrote on the White House blog: "This is nothing new. We saw this with the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act – constitutional challenges were brought to all three of these...
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Laughter is the best Medicine
This weekend deserves some special humor. Several of my blogger colleagues have pointed me to some pretty funny people riding on the Health Train Express. So saddle up, get a brew, or or whatever loosens you limbic system, and have some hearty laughs. Laughter is the best medicine, after all ! img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('70d73cd9-9b1b-4065-97cd-46e02414ade0'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAUoAw4oUQRALnnKVp12dri-dLY8n9nqh93jkahzNsf6PsGZxBgOijDGHRPJTIUP3bYq9S16_YQarnZXN8WzR1ILp-Yxd28k7331PuvO1MNhxMYEweaIVDWWv4yyVmOgkN3zwHtFjuW4s/?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none">For the back window. ...
Friday, October 8, 2010
THIS JUST IN….Another blow to the Constitution
This just in: A federal judge in Detroit Thursday afternoon rejected a request for a preliminary injunction to halt the health-care overhaul signed into law by President Obama back in March. In his 20-page opinion, Judge George Caram Steeh upheld the constitutionality of the law, finding that Congress possesses the authority under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause to require that every American purchase health insurance. Click here for the Bloomberg report; here for the opinion; here for other LB coverage of challenges to the health-care law. Steeh’s analysis under the Commerce Clause was broken into two parts. First, he found that the economic decisions that the Act regulates as to how to pay for health care services affect the...
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Pomegranate Juice, What is ??
The Wall Street Journal reports an impending battle between the marketers of Pomegranate Juice and the Food and Drug Administration. In their report which contains this video clip POM vs.. The FTC The FTC official who has accused the company (which Resnick runs with her husband Stewart) of making false health claims about the beverage has gone “crazy” on this issue and is a “zealot,” as she says in the WSJ today. She says unlike other major food producers, the company won’t back down from the spat — let’s call it a battle, at this point — in part because her husband hates “bullies.” Now would it not be wonderful if we “impotent physicians took a lesson from this company. They have done the research, and it is going to be up to the FTC and perhaps the FDA to disprove...
Discrimination in Play for Health Reform in California
Discrimination in Play for Health Reform in California CALHIPSO, or California Health Information Partnership & Services Organization has issued a brief regarding it’s services which will only be available to primary care physicians. The California Health Information Partnership and Services Organization (CalHIPSO) is an organization founded by clinical providers, for clinical providers, to help them successfully navigate through the complicated world of electronic health records (EHR) implementation. Our founding organizations are the California Medical Association (CMA), the California Primary Care Association (CPCA) and the California Association of Public Hospitals & Health Systems (CAPH). CalHIPSO is...
Monday, October 4, 2010
How Statistics Lie
The New England Journal of Medicine in an article written by Thomas Bodenheimer M.D., Ph.D., And David West M.D analyze Medicare statistics from the beloved Dartmouth Study. The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care study reveals a wide disparity in the number of coronary bypass procedures in Golden Colorado compared to other areas. The report reveals a 60% reduction in the number of procedures as compared to Miami, Florida. The Dartmouth Atlas Study has been used to justify changes in payment systems by Medicare. The study has previously criticized for a number of flaws. One factor which may explain the disparity regarding numbers of cardiac cases is Golden Colorado’s proximity to a major heart center in Denver, Colorado. A quick google map search will reveal that is is...