New buzz word "Transparency" is upon us all. Wikipedia lists a number of industries, and uses for this term, however it does not list 'healthcare". I am not sure what that means.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
Health Train Express Bailout 2018
Medpolitics has an article written by Paul Hseih MD regarding parallels between the home mortgage crisis created by 'universal home ownership' encouraged by not so wise financial market manipulations, and 'universal health care" as is being currently proposed by the Obama administration.
Paul Hsieh, MD is the co-founder of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine.
Are we at the beginning of a "Health Care Bubble" destined to failure?
More bubbles please!!
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Cool Down the Health Train Express
How would you like to become a popsicle?
A cardiologist in Louisiana has developed a non invasive technique to cool down the body of patients with strokes, acute myocardial infarction, for any disease whose body temperature can rapidly be cooled (ie, within six to ten minutes) to produce hypothermia.
It has long been recognized that hypothermia slows down the metabolic processes and improves the liklihood of healing without further damage to vital organs such as the brain, heart, kidneys, and liver.
This technique has been in use for decades for transporting donor organ tissues.
The device, is demonstrated by Paul McMullen M.D., cardiologist at the Ochsner Clinic, named "THERMOSUIT HYPOTHERMIA THERAPY. It is currently undergoing clinical trials at a number of Universitys and Heart Centers.
The therapeutic modality is already in use in Europe and approved by CE (Conformite Europeene). for use in hospitals
"Way cool" Pick your flavor(s).
Friday, December 5, 2008
Throwing Money at the Health Train
As long as we are at it, how about throwing 50 or 100 billion toward those underpriveleged hospitals and doctors. This is a national crisis which undermines the health and welfare of all. Get it while the spigot is flowing. Do we want cars or health??
iHealthbeat reports:
Lawmakers Consider Adding Health IT to Stimulus Package
Congressional health care leaders are considering adding health IT provisions to an economic stimulus package being developed by aides to President-elect Barack Obama and congressional staff, Government Health IT reports.
Congressional sources say that one strategy would be to attach the Wired for Health Care Quality Act to the economic stimulus legislation (McCloskey, Government Health IT, 12/4).
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and ranking member Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) introduced the bill (S 1693) to create a national electronic health record system more than a year ago, but privacy issues and funding concerns prevented the legislation from reaching the floor.
On Thursday, an aide to Enzi said the senator has not seen enough details of the economic proposal to know whether adding health IT to it would "blow the budget."
Blow the budget?? You mean if all this stimulus package fails it will be the providers and hospitals that caused it all.
Health Policy Experts Urge Caution
At this week's annual e-Health Initiative conference in Washington, D.C., health policy experts raised concerns about driving health IT adoption through a financial stimulus program.
Mark McClellan, director of the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution, said that efforts to finance health IT would be most effective if they are linked to specific standards or functional and performance requirements focused on health outcomes.
He said that although direct financing could increase health IT adoption, he is "not sure that by itself, it would lead to better care."
Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean, a physician and former governor of Vermont, cautioned that standards and uses of systems underwritten by a stimulus would have to be widely tested and accepted prior to purchasing (Government Health IT,
Unlike the financial world and credit fiasco, as well as the impending demise of the big 3 (not so big anymore), throwing money at the healthcare system will not cure the problems..
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Health Train Express Consensus
While most folks have been tuned to the recent financial crises, industry bailouts, mortgage melt downs, there have been significant proposals from the health insurance industry, set forth by the American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP),
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Ideas about how the U.S. can achieve universal health care are coming thick and fast. The insurance industry itself is stepping up to the nation’s suggestion box with another proposal.
The trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, called for universal coverage, a more centralized insurance market and cost-reduction that would slow the growth of the nation’s ballooning health-care spending by 30% in five years.
Consensus is emerging on universal healthcare, as reported in the New York Times
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
President Obama's Healthcare Transition Team
Every physician and almost every potential patient has dealt with the chaos and inequity of our current non-system. It takes an enormous effort to navigate to and from a medical clinic, hospital, navigate forms, bills, and payments, what is covered, and what is not covered. What used to be a rather simple transaction between doctor and patient has degenerated into a blizzard of paperwork, information technology and more. While HIT is promoted as a 'cure' it also raises many questions as to expense, privacy and converting healthcare providers into data entry clerks who will utilize more time entering data than caring for patients.
Healthcare transparency is upon us, and also health care policy planning. Tom Daschle has the following to offer. All of us should 'bury' him with our ideas.
Health Train Express applauds this relatively new approach
Arrogant,Abusive, and Disruptive on the Health Train Express
In today's email newsletters one from the New York Times caught my eye.
This is old, but still disturbing news. The article fails to mention what steps hospitals, medical staffs, and others have initiated to curb these episodes. Human behavior is at times unpredictable. What is also not mentioned is the disciplinary process, nor the response of the attending surgeon in their example.
It is also very interesting the article mentions (as an afterthought) that the incidence of these 'outbursts' have diminished recently. Could this be attributed to the mandate of decreased hours for residents in training.
It also does not attribute what the support staff did ,if anything, to enable this type of behavior. Does the nursing supervisors, and hospital administration have an avenue and procedure when this occurs.
This article is entirely one sided. How about this picture?
We have surgeons in the operating room, who bear total responsibility morally, ethically, and legally who may have been up for 24 hours or more, may have had their office hours disrupted to be in the operating room, at times at night with unfamilar and at times untrained personnel doing a procedure. Thrown into a life and death situation under these circumstances can tip an otherwise 'balanced surgeon' into 'anger'....Throwing a scalpel can be construed as assault with a deadly weapon. There are legal means of dealing with this situation, far beyond hospital discipline.
The New York Times lumps all episodes of surgeon unhappiness or anger into one category. Do they include a loud admonition to nurses that are talking, or an anesthesiologist playing loud rap music or even playing music without the consent of the operating surgeon? Is blood squirting up to the ceiling because a nurse or assistant was not paying attention to the operation? Did a critical piece of equipment fail causing irreparable damage?
None of these episodes can be lumped into one category, and each must be addressed individually. All hospitals now have procedures and mechanisms to avert this behavior.
Compared to other issues in our health care system, the uninsured, the inaccesiblity and unfunded mandates, this is a miniscule problem for American Health Care. There must be other issues the NY Times can print to fill up their space.
del.icio.us Tags: rage,nurse abuse,arrogance,disciplinary action,physician anger,healthcare,uninsured