Public Health and Nutritional Supplements

  del.icio.us Tags: public health,apha11,nutritonal supplements,pom,weight loss,youth,celebrities The American Public Health Association is meeting today in Washington, D.C. Public health has taken on a new meaning, with much more visibility and a proactive campaign which has captured the market place. Many entrepreneurs see the opportunity for profit in marketing healthy foods. Nutritional supplements are one area of much controversy. For healthy people there are few dangers except for overdoses of Vitamin A and Vitamin D.Nutritional supplements are very loosely regulated and patients cannot be certain of what or how much “active ingredient” is present in a dose. One spin off that is beneficial is the mindset of those using supplements...

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Valley of The Dry Bones

  The View From Here...

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Valley of the Dry Bones??

Today I am redirecting Health Train Express to “The View from Here”, another web site which I reserve for opinion on current events in medicine and in other socio-political controversy. Join me in a different kind of rant. The fork in the road leads us the choice of which desert landscape we will proceed to from here.  In the far distance lies the mountain, This photograph was taken in 2003 while residing near Palm Springs in Desert Hot Springs.  It was a unique time in my life while recovering from a heart surgery and a spine problem. Disconnected from most concerns of modern times it brought me back to pioneer times. There were several old abandoned miner communities where we lived in a primitive cement block house on a sand dune....

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Commodization of EMR

  EMR has reached the point of retail commodity. Costco’s online website is offering the Allscripts My Way and PHR for $499 /  month.  It was not clear if this was a ‘cloud’ solution, although it did state it was a ‘hosted’  EMR. Costco has teamed up with Etransmedia, a Premier Plus Allscripts Partner, allowing them to offer this EHR and PM solution to Costco members. My Way is the product of the purchase of Misys, a former competitor of Allscript, and is not truly the Allscripts EMR. The COSTCO web site elaborates further on federal incentives of $44,000 dollars for adopting EMR. The advertisement appears on a ‘redirect’ to Etransmedia’s website, not an uncommon practice for Costco Online offers. No mention is made of...

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Algos in the Health Care Equation

  “Many problems in society are just poorly designed algorithms” According to Bill Gates at a recent University of Washington talk, He posits that:  “The Miracle Of Availability” And Applying Computer Science To The World”  is certainly the case now with mHealth in all shapes and forms, Android devices iOS devices and Windows 7 phones. He admits to not being able to think in terms of terabytes and petabytes in this age as compared to his boyhood days of being happy with kilobytes and rarely a megabyte.  Programmers were spartans in that age, and there was no room for ‘bloat’. Gates admitted that he simply isn’t ideologically suited for allocating terabytes and petabytes. His comments regarding health care: When the most...

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Weight Loss on the Health Train Express

  According to the California Health Care Foundation which publishes California Healthline, The number of weight-loss surgeries performed at California hospitals increased by nearly 7% from 2005 to 2009, but deaths associated with the procedure have remained relatively low, according to a report by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports. OSHPD examined five types of weight-loss -- or bariatric -- surgery, the safety of the procedures and the number of surgeries carried out at hospitals (Hines, Riverside Press-Enterprise, 10/26). The report found that 94 hospitals in the state performed weight-loss surgeries in 2009. Hospitals performed 13,500 procedures that year, up by 6.8%...

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Health Train Express 2011

    The time of year is approaching when change and snow are in the air. We are approaching Health Train’s 7th Anniversary. During the next several weeks Health Train Express will be redesigned with new cars, engine and perhaps add a caboose. We are eliminating the many distractions on the side banners and also eliminating our blog roll. Readers will be left with social media buttons for Facebook, twitter and G+ Gone will be the other links such as   These were far more useful in past years prior to the explosion and common use of social media.  Health Train is based upon fact and opinion. Our mission is to put it out there, and there are better internet businesses that focus on distribution, networking and building...

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Social Media TEDMED and Health Train Express

  TEDMED “ Intellectuals solve problems… geniuses prevent them “ (Albert Einstein) One of my favorite pastimes is reviewing TEDMED’s videos. Frankly it is not cost-effect to attend these meetings at a cost of 4-5,000 per TEDMED. However in the scheme of things a delay of several months or even year (in the scheme of things) is not terribly significant.  In fact the delay serves to allow the ideas and projections to mature with the curing effects of time. One of my favorite TEDMED presentations is from Dean Kamen who invented the original infusion pump, the Segway, and now works on cyborg-like prosthetics, as well as cost-effective water purification equipment usable in third world countries. img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var...

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Google + and Health Train Express

  Health Train Express will soon have a direct link with Google +. The link is in place but not yet functional. For those familiar with Google + the functionality will be identical to G+ that you now access, including social groups (Circles) over which you have complete control. Our readers will be encouraged to set up a “Circle” named “Health Train Express” There you may ‘friend’ others who read our blog and/or other social media in medicine. The site has the capability of back linking to any of our archived and current posts. Images can be uploaded and you will also be placed in our circle of readers. A key feature is Google Hangout where uses can video conference with nine other readers for discussions on Health Care and Social Media...

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How to use Social Media at Meetings

Recent analytics reveal that over 65% of MDs use social media. There remains much controversy about using SM in patient communications. However, SM offers many functionality for socializing online at meetings, and broadcasting events in your area. (meet me at Starbucks, where you are now, conference attendees, and many many others.)  I am a relative newbie and learn things daily. Thousands of application developers add value to each platform, such as Tweet deck, Hoot suite,   Twitter is very useful at meetings.  The key ingredient is how to use hash tags. Hash tags allow users to ‘search’ for relevant tweets. For instance, #aao_ophth will display all tweets about the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The sender must insert...

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Corporate Medicine and HealthCare

  The Startup Health Roundtable held last Thursday in Mountain View, CA was attended by over 300 people and was watched by hundreds more on the Live Stream Channel . It featured Wired Editor, Thomas Goetz, author of ‘The Decision Tree ‘ Bob Kocher, and Steven Klein.  Each came to the table with ideas about bridging the gap between Health and Wellness Entrepreneurs and Investors. Business speak is very different from health speak. Many entrepreneurs have flailed at applying investing theory and startup theory to health ventures.. Despite many efforts to corporatize medicine, physicians remain hesitant and unconvinced. del.icio.us Tags: corporate,medical,entrepeneurs,investors,startup health...

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The New Networks

  During the past ten years we have witnessed exponential growth in networking, social media, medical connectivity, remote telemedicine and video-conferencing. This is only one of the major changes in the business of practicing our ‘craft.Passivity in adopting new technology is never a good thing, except if one is less than five years from retiring in a solo practice, and even then adopting modern technology adds value to a practice sale price, or recruiting young physicians.  Young physicians are trained in EMR and are facile with digital media and communications and wish to practice in an EMR setting.                                                                  ...

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Enter the Macintosh

This week’s events over the past ten days since Steve Jobs left this earth brought back memories to me during the early years of my private ophthalmology practice (1979-1984).  I had determined that I would become one of the first small practices to use personal computers to manage the business and billing side of my medical practice.  At the time there were a handful of PC based programs and perhaps only one Mac medical application.   If I remember correctly it was called Media-Mac. Today it probably would have been named iMedic. I went the PC way and my partner decided to go Medi-Mac.  My associate was not a techie kind of doctor, he just knew it was intuitive to use and got the job done. Many of my doctor friends...

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Retraction Attraction on HealthTrain Express

  Not much of what I write about is original, rather I hope to select important blogs and select items of interest to my readers for a fresh perspective and change of pace. Such is today’s topic RETRACTION WATCH is such a blog written by respected journalists. There are more instances of scientific publishing gone awry, and this site purports to alert us of these happenings. The Logo stands for :  ‘Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) I know of no related sites for medical research. Why write a blog about retractions? For that answer we must listen to Adam  Marcus and Ivan Oransky and listen to what people are saying about Retraction Watch. Your physician may have been treating you with misinformation...

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The Threat to Legalized Cannabis

  The Threat to Legalized Marijuana:     . Associated Press writers Lisa Leff in San Francisco and Catherine Tsai in Denver contributed to this report. Some states have legalized the growth of marijuana for medical purposes. Other states have bills proposing the same laws. Sources, including the AP are reporting the Department of Justice plan to shut down many growing and sales operations of Marijuana Dispensaries in California. In some cases the process has begun with warning letters sent to landlords threatening seizure of property (forfeiture) in an effort to dissuade owners from renting to marijuana businesses. The marijuana businesses operate within the limits of California law, employing people, paying taxes, renting...

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Apple on the Health Train

Steve Job’s life and death have had a deep impact here on earth. His accomplishments rival those of  Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Richard B. Mellon, Rockefeller, Harvey Firestone, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Getty, Who would have known what transpired between these two photos of Steve Jobs at the extremes of our lives. It is almost as if his physical being was transformed into his inventions. Bloomberg’s Business Weekly tells the story of Jobs from 1955-1985. ABC News perhaps gives the best video-documentary of Job’s Professional Career. img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('69d24a79-c703-4cfa-ac9e-d611fb57daee'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-jgG9eFwE2i8/To4XD4qxz6I/AAAAAAAAC7w/_dUvmqgL4b4/video01c08685e1eb%25255B17%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800"...

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