Health Hangout Post-mortem

Part I The first hangout was shared by only a few of the best ‘hangers’. It was on short notice, however the time of the ‘H’ will better be placed in the evening after hours…Not many working stiffs (docs), not cadavers can take time to ‘hang’ right after lunch. Steve Eisenberg MD (oncology superior) from Poway Ca and I were ‘hanging’ when his nurse interrupted him for a phone call. He never quite made it back. Be forewarned…hanging may interrupt and alter your office productivity. Also when leaving the room, mute your video and audio.  All the health care techs,, nurses and wannabees will come up to the screen to see who you are. The next hangout will be in the evening, TBA. So, if you  are a physician and want to ‘poo-poo’ social...

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Hanging out on the Health Train

August 31, 2011    Google + Hangout today at 1PM PDT, 4PM EDT. Good Morning. Today I am hosting the first Hangout on Google + for Health Professionals, Physicians, and Health Information Professionals. Date: August 31, 2011: Time: 1PM PDT, 4PM EDT. Place: Google Hangouts. Search for Gary Levin and Click on the Green “Join” tab. Invites will be sent out at 12:30 PM today. The Hangout room will open at 12:50, sign in early since there are only 9 spots in addition to mine. The Agenda will be organizational. the Hangout and topics to be discussed and a forward looking schedule for the next six months. Some possible topics: EMR Incentives, EMR adoption, ROIs are there any ? Experiences of Early Adopters. Thoughts on Diagnostic...

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Health Train Hangout +

     I admit it. My interest in the blog has waned the past month, since I discovered G+. This is serious ! I have an addiction to G+, especially  ‘Hangouts”. I am finding many of my fellow Bloggers over there asking me to ‘Join the Hangout”.  I spent the past week building my circles. Constantly amazed at people who have 100,000 followers…I must be missing something. However the sillier the message, the more followers you will have. I will be back again in about a month or so. Do watch for my Hangouts, though.  del.icio.us Tags: G+,Google Plus,Hangout,Sparks,Huddle,Circles...

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Health Train in a Hurricane

Having been through several earthquakes,hurricanes, floods I will take an earthquake any day !  I hope my east coast readers are all okay. Katrina seemed to have taught emergency management many things. 1. Evacuate early 2. Be proactive…evacuate dependent elders, sick people 3. Encourage people to be prepared with emergency supplies, medications,,(keep them dry) 4.Have a personal plan for yourself and family 5. Let people know how to get ahold of you 6 Your life is more important that your property…that can be replaced, but not you. 7. Take news in small doses. Media tends to hype things. 8. Stay tuned to the weather channel. 9. Have an emergency radio, lantern, and food supply. When you shop don’t buy frozen or food requiring electricity....

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Google Your Health Records

Another wake-up about privacy and security: Huffington Post: SAN FRANCISCO — Until recently, medical files belonging to nearly 300,000 Californians sat unsecured on the Internet for the entire world to see. There were insurance forms, Social Security numbers and doctors' notes. Among the files were summaries that spelled out, in painstaking detail, a trucker's crushed fingers, a maintenance worker's broken ribs and one man's bout with sexual dysfunction. At a time of mounting computer hacking threats, the incident offers an alarming glimpse at privacy risks as the nation moves steadily into an era in which every American's sensitive medical information will be digitized. Electronic records can lower costs, cut bureaucracy and ultimately save...

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Information Overload

Barbara Duck in her blog “The Medical Quack” interviews Dr. Hamlaka, the outgoing CIO of the Harvard Medical School. He along with Sean Nolan have said, and why  It's time to take a break with a Health IT-Interview with Dr. Halamka and why he's stepping down as Harvard Medical CIO-there's too much on the plate tellilng ONC to ‘take a vacation’   PLEASE, TAKE A BREAK!JUST STOP TALKING FOR AWHILE AND LET US IMPLEMENT STUFF. My thought on this is “sure”. These federal employees are PAID to generate paperwork. Your tax dollars and mine are caught up in this process. Their ‘quarterly assessments” depend upon the volume of bureaucratic edits, they produce. If they stop their job is in jeopardy.  It is a self-propagating process at...

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Rocketman

Sometimes I believe I should change the name of my blog to Health Rocket Express. Advances are proceeding at such a rapid rate that my Health Train cannot keep up with all the issues, social, technical, patient care, research, patient advocacy and more.  Far cry from my days as a very focused ophthalmologist. I find the new age just as exciting as it was when I took out my first cataract or corneal transplant surgery. Technology changes in healthcare and medicine,as well as health information technology parallel advances in internet, video streaming, social media networks, wireless technology, All of these technologies come at us simultaneously and compete for our attention. What to adopt? Will it be obsolete next year, and/or replaced...

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Color Me Confused

  At one time there were only about 8 primary crayola crayons to chose from. Much like health insurance. However today we are faced with many more, not just in crayola colors, but the byzantine of flavors of health insurance coverage, with most having some blank spots somewhere or other. The Image above is a ‘Radial’ design, however the same data can be presented in ‘Cartesian” format, below:   LINK to INTERACTICE COLOR WHEEL This brought to  mind the charts and tables that appear in many medical journals and articles. Nothing can be more boring that trying to decipher what a chart or table lists. The visual system does not organize tables into constructs for interpretation. Colors stimulate many more neurons, not just in the...

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Emergency Department Charges

Akron General Patient Price Information Emergency Department Demystifying, and Maybe Decreasing the Emergency Room Bill Consumer Health Ratings: Typical Average Cost of Hospital ED Visit Have you been to the emergency room lately?  Everyone tries to avoid ERs. For one thing they are meant for emergencies, and despite that fact there are many who use the ER in the evening on the weekends and holidays when their doctor is not available. This is especially true if you see a physician in a small group or a solo practitioner. Many sign out to the ER, and because ERs must examine all comers (by law) these patients add to the constant stream.  Some arrive at the ER from an accident, some have no physician at all.  Wait times are variable...

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Employee Benefit Package

  How times change: We can’t afford to pay for your health benefits. del.icio.us Tags: health insurance,social media,facebook,employee benefits,cartoon...

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Here Come the 20-Somethings

20 Something Manifesto ! Happy Monday boys and girls. Take your seats, silence your smartphones, restrain your iPads, and listen up. (you do it in the movie theater, so give me some of that RESPECT ! This post can probably be ignored by the under 30 crowd, but there is no penalty for reading it, it is not like meaningful use in the CMS incentive plan. Today’s AMEDNEWS writes “Here come the 20 Somethings” about patients, and the statement can also be made about MDs. During the past few years,  some hospitals have held a "speed-dating" event, in which young adults briefly interviewed physicians for five minutes before moving on to meet other doctors. The reasons are thus: "trying to attract young adults and educating them on the importance...

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Pharma Not in Business of Health, Healing, Cures, Wellness

  Gwen Olsen, a former pharmaceutical representative elaborates on some shocking news !   Buried in what we read and hear about health reform and the root causes of health care inflation is the cost of pharmaceuticals. We are told and shown reams of data how physician ordering, hospital inflation, aberrant and inequitable coding creates a motivation for unnecessary procedures, overuse of emergency departments, created our present morass. Not much is told about the role of big pharma. Nor the tremendous disparity of drug costs at the counter between cash paying customers, insured customers, or the cost for patients on government programs, like Medicare, and Medi-cal. Volume purchasers such as CMS, and other federal programs, ie,...

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