Mobile Technology Is Transforming The Health Industry

  Mobile Technology Is Transforming The Health Industry, But To What Extent? Dave Chase Technology is in the process of bringing change to every piece of the health industry — wellness, fitness, healthcare, medicine — you name it. And as it always seems with introduction of new technologies, it’s awe-inspiring how quickly they can transform entire industries yet, at the same time, make us realize just how far we have to go (or how far behind we really are). The health industry has been touched (and defined) by cutting-edge technology for years, yet its relics, legacy infrastructure, paper-pushing, and archaic procedures are as obvious today as ever before. Mobile Technology for health  can be classified in two categories: Physician...

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Social Media in a Hospital Bed

  No this post is not about pubescent hormonal hyper sexuality nor the story about the sex life of fan boys or fan girls,  G+strings,, or tantalizing twitter tweepes. It is a story about Fred and Regina Holladay and their experience (bad) when Fred was diagnosed with advanced Renal Cancer. Dr. to Dr. View more presentations from Regina Holliday The program is self-explanatory and does not require expansion here. del.icio.us Tags: hospitals,social media,healthcare,cancer,twitter,facebook,Google plus...

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Bold New Approach to Funding Medical School Tuition

  Over the past ten years both college and medical school tuitions have increased in some cases four times. This has effected college graduates and physicians. Tuition at the state run UC system in 2001-2002 was $ 3429 and has risen to  $13,200 per year. This places an extraordinary debt burden on students at a time when they have little income. In California which has faced the perfect storm of decreasing revenues in the face of economic distress Chris Occasion, President of the FixUCR movement at the University of California presented a manifesto Their manifesto is the UC Student Investment Proposal, which calls for eliminating the upfront costs of college and having working graduates pay 5 percent of their salary back to the...

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5% of patients account for half of health care spending

USA TODAY reports that 22 % of healthcare spending is from less than 1% of patients.(2009). That's about $90,000 per person, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. U.S. residents spent $1.26 trillion that year on health care. Five percent accounted for 50% of health care costs, about $36,000 each, the report said. Why is this number so important? According to AHRQ the report showed how a tiny segment of the population can drive health care spending and that efforts to control cost should focus on this segment to improve efficiency using new technology, outcome studies, About one in five health care consumers remained in the top 1% of spenders for at least two consecutive years, the report showed. They tended to be white,...

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C.E.S. & Health Train Express in Vegas

  Monday January 9 2012 marked the opening of the Consumer Entertainment Show in Las Vegas. Among the carnival-like presentations both on the exhibit floor and in conference were many medical applications in hardware and software.  After all,, medical practices and physicians are consumers. Connectivity is high on the list of presentations.. Physical security of the mobile hand held devices was important, however the real value is the software and data in the device. Consumer oriented health monitors were also on the list: This one is from Zensorium. and intended for iOS. (iPhone) RFID for security is available with small tags on laptop cases, smartphones, iPads and the like “Tags” are available for pets and even children to keep...

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Senior Citizens on the Health Train

GeriPal (blog) POGOe – Portal of Geriatric Online Education (clinical resource) Geriatric Nursing (podcast) CareGiving (community site) The American Geriatrics Society Like (Facebook group) Wen Dombrowski MD (Twitter) American Geriatrics (Twitter) GeriPsych Consult (mobile app) Health AGEnda (blog) John A. Hartford Foundation (Youtube) Senior citizens are getting much attention from politicians and health care professionals. Deservedly so since they are the unfortunate who are involuntarily ‘consuming’ health care. It’s the nature of aging and human life. No one wants to be ill or infirm. The term “consumers of health care’ implies that healthcare is produced, or that health itself is produced. Perhaps that is what preventive medicine,...

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Is 2012 The New Era for Health Train Express?

Val Jones MD, perhaps the empress of health social media, and Better Health has announced her discontinuation of posting blogs on Better Health LLC. She however indicated the continuation of the brand as a platform for Grand Rounds and for her use of it as her personal consulting platform. Dr Jones, along with others, has been a visionary and developed considerable credibility with early backing from Revolution Health and Steve Case’s interest in health reform.  Her success required considerable investment of time, resources and the generous support of many silent investors, physicians, nurses and medical journalists.   She innovated aggregation of gifted medical writers into a visible public platform for medical news. There...

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Health Train in the Sunlight

  The Health Benefits of Sunlight Researchers have started recognizing the importance of sunlight for a healthy lifestyle, recent studies reveal that sunlight renders many health benefits. Apart from Sunlight maintaining temperature and humidity, sunlight plays a significant role in nourishing and energizing the human body. It is also vital in order to get the full nutritional value from food that you consume and it has been proven that getting sufficient sunlight aids in preventing chronic ailments such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), osteoporosis, mental depression, type 2 diabetes, and cancers affecting the bladder, breasts, cervix, colon, ovaries, prostrate, and the stomach. To put it more succinctly, sunlight serves as the...

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Health Train and Winter

Mobile apps are the big items this year, not only in health care, but in a multiplicity of other niches. When a powerful blizzard ripped through North Dakota last winter, hundreds of drivers were stranded as white-out conditions shuttered interstates statewide.Even in large metropolitan areas sudden and large snow storms can paralyze drivers with other cars close by. The recent Chicago Lake Shore drive emphasizes the fact that this does not occur in only North Dakota. That convinced two local software developers to create the Winter Survival Kit app. North Dakota State University's Bob Bertsch and Jake Joraanstad came up with the free program for iPhones and Android smartphones to help motorists prepare for winter driving and when things...

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California Health Budget Slash

  Governor Brown surprise budget announcements. Major revisions will be made to California’s health safety net, with reorganization and  downsizing big government.  No doubt this will be unpopular in some circles. This is further complicated by federal mandates for health insurance exchange formation and proposals to use Medi-Cal as a vehicle for uninsured, uninsurable, and poor. Expect Chaos del.icio.us Tags: medi-california,budget,Governor Brown,Health Insurance Exchange...

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Unprotected Sex and Fellatio

Warning: This post may not be appropriate for readers under the age of six. The  article is not intended to be discriminatory in terms of sexual preferences, race, creed, color or political preferences. I am expanding upon an article read in the WSJ Health Blog today. A recent study reported in the WSJ Health blog discusses the overall slight decline in rates of cancer with an uptick in certain types of cancer. Among the small increases are the incidence of oral cancers (HPV papilloma of the posterior pharynx, malignant melanoma, thyroid cancer,  Although the decline in smoking should decrease this incidence it appears that ‘oral sex’ increases the rate for practitioners of this art of  karma sutra. I have given up cigarettes,...

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The Dangers of Social Media and Self Diagnosis

I have been a proponent of social media and it’s use to improve healthcare and improving accessibility for patients to clinicians and hospital resources, there are certain caveats and precaution are advised when attempting ‘self diagnosis’ In the past ten years innumerable web sites have become available for patients..  Remembered that these sites were never meant to be  used in an isolated fashion for self diagnosis. They are meant to be educational and as a supplement to professional office or clinic visits. Entering or searching for symptoms both physical or emotional into a web site will list many answers, some irrelevant. These sites can be accessed either before a visit or after a visit to assist you in discussing your condition...

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It’s In Your DNA: Social Media

  Take a look at the Info graphic below…. This is taking place in a single minute — every minute — of most everyday within the digital world….   Still think it’s a passing fad? Still think you do not need to establish some form of digital presence on the healthcare social media stage?  —Think again — http://goo.gl/Bwz1d By: Shanghai Web Designers Howard J Luks M.D. points out the reasons why physicians should participate in the landscape of social media in his recent post via Summify. Dr Luks message and articulation of the message is so well put that I repeat it here, and give him full credit for this information. It bears repeating in my blog(s). I happen to agree with him. Issues surrounding health care and health...

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