This page is very humorous and well worth the watch. With all the gadgets we carry today, they are providing some assistance with the latest fashions...BD
http://www.greatpockets.com/index.php
http://www.greatpockets.com/index.php
Pharmalot...Pharmalittle...
Interestingly, AstraZeneca was largely silent much of the week, but by Friday, was forced to reply to a few blogs, including Pharmalot, after it became clear the affair would not simply go away as quickly as a newsletter could be tossed in the trash. (For earlier posts, scroll down or click on 'AstraZeneca' on the tags along the lower right for this past week's collection).
"Like it or not. Blogs, whether run by whistleblowers, marketers, patients or journalists, are a new front. And there's no going back."
Next week is likely to be still busier. Here's why:
Monday: Eli Lilly reports earnings;
Tuesday: House Energy and Commerce committee PDUFA hearing;
Wednesday: Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions committee PDUFA hearing;
Thursday: Merck, Schering-Plough and Wyeth report earnings;
Friday: Pfizer reports earnings.
http://pharmalot.com/2007/04/pharmalotpharamlittle.phpRSS Translates Into Info On Savings
This site actually relies on RSS technology to preview the latest news as forces can be easily joined to combine new and events into one convenient location, to avoid having to waste time clicking from site to site to catch up on current events and news...BD
Internet-savvy people know that RSS stands for really simple syndication. That refers to frequently updated feeds of content such as news articles.
But the acronym could just as easily stand for really smart spending. That's because so much good information about spending money and personal finance is readily available via websites, message boards and blogs.But surfing from site to site can become tedious, especially if you want to follow information updated daily or several times a day. That's where RSS comes in. The solution can be an RSS news reader, which can aggregate headlines and summaries for all those postings in a single place.
Examples of free Web-based RSS readers are Google Reader, NewsGator, Bloglines and My Yahoo. Desktop software versions of RSS readers include the newer versions of Web browsers, such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
Readers are included in some e-mail programs, including Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird.Consumer Reports (www.consumerreports.org). The must-have publication for smart consumers has several RSS feeds, titled consumer news, home and appliances, electronics, cars, medical guide and safety blog.
New Storm Surges Through I.T. World
According to the Internet Storm Center, a hurricane-like virus is blowing through the PC world, with at least 20,000 infections on Thursday and thousands more expected. It's a new variant of the notorious Storm worm that's been plaguing I.T. administrators since last year's widespread outbreak.
Faith, Hope, Charity, and the Jackpot Mentality
It is time to call an orthopedic surgeon. You don’t just put a cast something like this.
“Good morning, Dr. Smith. Sorry to wake you up but this is Dr. Bear at the County Hospital Emergency Department. I’ve got a 25-year-old gentleman, snowmobile versus barn, with an open mid-shaft fracture of the left femur but otherwise without significant injuries. We have him in a traction splint and his distal pulses and sensation are intact. On the way through the barn he dragged the end of his broken femur through approximately fifteen feet of cow manure and I’m afraid it was about thirty minutes before his drunken friends decided that he probably wasn’t going to walk it off.”
If you were an orthopedic surgeon, would you come in, especially as you can come up with quite a few good excuses not to?
Source: Faith, Hope, Charity, and the Jackpot Mentality : PANDA BEAR, MD
Help Put Bob Through Med School!
Hello, my name is Bob and I am a first year Medical Student. A very broke first year Medical Student. I need tuition money, this is where you come in.
For just $1 or more via Paypal I will answer any medical question that you may have (including Grey's Anatomy Questions) Hell, I will answer any question period that you may have. I may not know the answer but at the very least I will point you in the right direction or we will have a few laughs.
I will post all questions and answers on this site. That is unless you specify I don't post it. Which may be the case if you are inquiring about an STD you got from the nice young fellow at the bar last night.
My goal is to raise my tuition for next year, which is about $30,000...yes Medical School is expensive.
http://www.putbobthroughmedschool.com/Unveiling Of Neurosurgery Robot April 17
The world's first MRI-compatible robot for brain surgery has been developed by a research team from the University of Calgary / Calgary Health Region. The unveiling of neuroArm will take place at 9:30 am (Mountain Time), Tuesday, April 17.
The six-year, multimillion-dollar project is led by U of C Faculty of Medicine / Calgary Health Region neurosurgeon Dr. Garnette Sutherland in collaboration with MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA), the company that built Canadarm and Canadarm II for NASA's space shuttles.
Sneak Peek Photos of TabletKiosk's New Sahara i400 Dock
The Sahara is the full size tablet from Tablet Kiosk that offers both touch screen and digitizer. I have had my hands on the unit and it works great. You can order from the website and please make a reference to Ducknet if you do place an order..we appreciate it.
I have worked with the dock with the UMPC and it is also small and light. This is really a great new look for docking stations and a nice look to compliment the Sahara. BD
With four USB 2.0 Ports, VGA out, Firewire, Ethernet, power and settings that allow the user to to position their i400 Tablet PC for comfortable writing while docked, this new streamlined Tablet dock from TabletKiosk will be much appreciated by those purchasing the new Sahara i400 Tablet PC. I also suspect that there may be a feature or two in this dock that we don't know about yet...
I've always said that for the best possible user experience anyone buying a Slate Style Tablet PC should also purchase the docking station with it and my feeling on that have not changed. The ability to dock your slate at home or in your office and attach a usb keyboard and mouse, DVD, printer or any or any other accessories you happen to need or use is important for both usability and convenience.
Source: Sneak Peek Photos of TabletKiosk's New Sahara i400 Tablet PC Dock
Canada exporting nearly 10% of its MDs to U.S.
TORONTO -- One in nine trained-in-Canada doctors is practising medicine in the United States, says a study published in today's issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
If Canadian-educated doctors who were born in the United States are excluded, the number is one in 12 -- and the study suggests that luring back some of these Canadian physicians would go a long way toward solving the country's doctor shortage.
While they acknowledge the exodus has abated a bit in the past couple of years, the authors say the impact is as if two averaged sized medical schools in Canada were doing nothing but training doctors for the United States.
Source: globeandmail.com: Canada exporting nearly 10% of its MDs to U.S.
F.D.A. Rejects Merck’s New Pain Medication
A panel of federal drug advisers voted 20 to 1 Thursday to reject an application by Merck to sell its pain pill Arcoxia because of concerns that the drug could cause as many as 30,000 heart attacks annually if widely used.
Food and Drug Administration officials were unusually harsh in their criticism of the medicine.
“What you’re talking about is a potential public health disaster” if Arcoxia is approved for sale, Dr. David Graham, an F.D.A. safety officer, told the panel.
Source: F.D.A. Rejects Merck’s New Pain Medication - New York Times
DOQ - IT UNIVERSITY FROM CMS GOES PUBLIC
CMS is ready to help physicians with learning about electronic medical records..there is a ton of information out there...not sure how effective this will be if the element of time is not there to participate...BD
DOQ-IT University goes public The CMS has made public an online guide to help physicians in solo and small office practices adopt electronic health-record systems. The CMS calls the Web-based guide " DOQ-IT University," a name derived from the Doctor's Office Quality-Information Technology, or DOQ-IT program, which is itself part of a larger effort by CMS to improve the quality of care at the outpatient level through a pay-for-performance reporting program facilitated by EHR system adoption. The DOQ-IT U program is being managed by the Medicare quality improvement organization program. QIOs in every state are obliged as part of their contracts with the CMS to provide IT extension services to office-based physicians.
The training sessions help physicians with "office workflow redesign, culture change, and communication necessary for successful ... EHR adoption, implementation of care management, and the incorporation of a strong patient self-management component to clinical care," according to a CMS statement. The program also will include disease specific modules and patient self-management components, the CMS said.
UnitedHealth offering real-time claims submission
Physicians filing claims for patients with UnitedHealthcare insurance now can do so in real-time, thanks to a new claims submission Web site.
UnitedHealthcare, a company of Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH), launched the service in January. Doctors enter the patient's eligibility information and codes for care received during the visit, and UnitedHealthcare will confirm costs in less than 10 seconds.
The cost information includes the total allowed price of the procedure based on the contract between the insurer and provider, the reimbursement amount and any fees the patient might owe.
Patients can have their claim information ready before leaving the doctor's office, and there is less paperwork and a shorter processing time. Processing usually takes days or weeks using older methods.
Source: UnitedHealth offering real-time claims submission - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:
High Tech Rendered Low Tech while Passing the Baton of Communication
From the EMR Update page from my friend Dr. Wilkerson...good EMR at one end and perhaps not as organized at the other end...BD
My son lacerated his spleen last week while in San Francisco at a Skateboard Tournament. He was at Seaton Hospital for 2.5 days to make sure he was stable and not hemorrhaging.
He is home now and saw his internist who uses Misys EMR. The internist rightly needs the medical records. So he gave me son paper medical release forms to fill out and fax to Seaton in Frisco.
No doubt this will take days if not weeks to get his medical records. This is the kind of communication bottleneck/roadblock that could and should be solved in minutes not days and weeks.
C.M.Wilkerson, D.C.
Carson Doctors Group
TabletPCs in Medicine
Editor-in-Chief
www.MedicalTabletPC.com
Home: www.Digital-Doc.com
Source: emrupdate.com - High Tech Rendered Low Tech while Passing the Baton of Communication
Cigna expands e-visit options
Cigna HealthCare for Seniors announced Tuesday it will offer free electronic visits and other online health services through McKesson Corp.'s connectivity link RelayHealth. Cigna says it is the first Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug plan in Arizona to provide coverage for e-visits.
Cigna's physician network, called Cigna Medical Group currently offers online health care services, including e-visits at a nominal charge, to its non-Medicare patients. The online services were launched at its 17 health care centers in Arizona in mid-2006. Now all CMG patients can use RelayHealth to schedule or cancel appointments, refill prescriptions, request lab results, send a note to their doctor's office, request a referral, and manage their personal health records online.
Source: Cigna expands e-visit options - The Business Journal of Phoenix:
Windows XP to be phased out by year's end despite customer demand
Computer makers have been told they'll no longer be able to get Windows XP OEM by the end of this year, despite consumer resistance to Vista and its compatibility problems.
By early 2008, Microsoft's contracts with computer makers will require companies to only sell Vista-loaded machines. "The OEM version of XP Professional goes next January," said Frank Luburic, senior ThinkPad product manager for Lenovo. "At that point, they'll have no choice."
Despite Microsoft's relentless promotion of Vista, manufacturers are still seeing plenty of demand from customers for systems preloaded with XP, especially in the finicky SOHO market.
Source: Windows XP to be phased out by year's end despite customer demand | APC Magazine
What to do with a Bi-Polar surgeon...
This article is actually pretty scary in the fact that a bi-polar surgeon can continue to operate with supervision, especially given the facts that he was known to not always take his medication..and the irony is the fact that he could sue for compensation for the hospital not having supervision available for him to do his job??? As a patient would this ever be disclosed to us to make a decision to allow or not allow the procedure from the surgeon?? This situation literally makes no sense in the fact that the surgeon could sue...BD
Hospital X was grossly -- if not criminally -- negligent, and you ought to award zillions of dollars in punitive damages for their misconduct! Consider this list of sins: this hospital knew that its surgeon was mentally ill. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and they knew it. He had been locked up in mental institutions at least twice before. The danger here was very real. Don't let them try to claim they didn't foresee danger. Why, once when that surgeon was operating on a patient, multiple witnesses will tell you that he "became disoriented during the surgery, forgot the names of certain instruments and at one point appeared to be talking to the wall!" Even after he was treated, two different psychiatrists who evaluated him refused to unequivocally state that he was competent. And they let him continue to operate on vulnerable patients. Without any supervision. Even though they knew he had a history of failing to take his medication.
Co-Payments Cut Statin Use - Heart Disease and other cardiovascular conditions
TUESDAY, April 10 (HealthDay News) -- Many patients taking statins to lower their cholesterol stop taking the drugs because of co-payments and shared drug costs, a new study found.
These drugs, which have been shown to prevent heart attacks, should be fully covered by insurance, said study lead researcher Dr. Sebastian Schneeweiss, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School.
Source: Co-Payments Cut Statin Use - Heart Disease and other cardiovascular conditions on MedicineNet.com
Web Based Care Plan
The Customer Solution: The Med-eXpert web-based system is utilized by the care manager to tell the Med-eMonitor what to do for each patient and to report the data. The Med-eXpert site provides a simple, yet flexible, interface for automating a patient’s care plan, including their medication regimen. Reusable care plan templates are stored in the system to improve the efficiency of enrolling a new patient. The secure interface protects both patient and care manager information and is compliant with current HIPPA regulations. The reporting interface offers easy to use, meaningful reports, which assist in the collection and management of medication adherence and care plan information. The data export features provide the ability to export the results to external applications.
Organizing Patient Regimens (Click To Enlarge)
Source: InforMedix.com
Military Plans to Surf in Space
The U.S. military plan to test an Internet router in space, in a project that could also benefit civilian broadband satellite communications.
Cisco Systems Inc. and Intelsat General Corp., a subsidiary of Intelsat Ltd., are among the companies selected by the U.S. Department of Defense for its Internet Routing In Space (IRIS) project, which aims to deliver military communications through a satellite-based router.
Potential nonmilitary benefits of the IRIS program include the ability to route IP (Internet Protocol) traffic between satellites in space in much the same way packets are moved on the ground, reducing delays, saving on capacity and offering greater networking flexibility, Lloyd Wood, space initiatives manager in the Global Defense, Space & Security division of Cisco, said Thursday.
Hospital CEOs' Pay Soars
Pay for performance for hospital CEOs? BD
At most hospitals, a compensation committee decides how much to give the CEO after evaluating job performance and the going rate at comparable institutions. The board of directors holds the final say.
The head of Middlesex Hospital earned $1.9 million last year, making him the highest-paid hospital administrator in the state. In just three years, CEO Robert Kiely's compensation nearly tripled, part of a trend in soaring compensation packages for hospital leaders.
Last year, Kiely and seven other Connecticut hospital administrators - three of them top managers in the Yale-New Haven Hospital Health System - made more than $1 million.Compensation at nonprofits is exploding because board members often come from the corporate world, where lavish CEO salaries are accepted, said Pablo Eisenberg, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute. Compensation consultants are also driving up pay by referencing corporate salaries in their surveys. As the salary gap widens between top managers and their staff, teamwork and collegiality suffers, he argues.
"Boards are not exercising their fiduciary duty," he said. "No one is questioning these excessive compensations."
Intel Motorcycle Has No Mirrors, No Dashboard but has a removeable UMPC tablet - doubles as a virtual dashboard
Intel Motorcycle Has No Mirrors, No Dashboard
Thursday April 5, 2007 11:38 AM PDT - By: Michael Kwan
They haven't told us whether it'll be running on Windows Vista, but here is an Intel-designed motorcycle that boasts all sorts of technological goodies. It may not be as fast as the KillaCycle or even have as sexy a name, but what the Intel bike does have is a removable UMPC "that doubles as a virtual dashboard", granting you access to all your computer applications as you tear it up down the highway.
You'll also notice that this motorcycle does not have conventional mirrors. When you're going as fast as you are, I guess you have no time to look at what's behind you, but when the need arises, you can switch on over to the rear-facing cameras mounted behind you, presumably sending their feed to the UMPC between the handlebars. On this same UMPC, you can enjoy full audio and video capabilities, GPS, and a 3G data connection. Top this all off with a quad- or octo-core chipset, and you've got yourself a pretty advanced bike. Too bad it's not commercially available, to my knowledge.
HIPAA Update - police can access crime records from hospitals
HIPAA Allows Police Access To Alleged Crime Victims In Hospitals
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act allows hospitals to provide police with access to patients who are victims of alleged crimes, U.S. District Judge Tucker Melancon ruled on Friday, the AP/Dayton Daily News reports (AP/Dayton Daily News, 4/3). The HIPAA Federal Privacy Rule, implemented in 2003, allows health care providers to share patient medical records for the purposes of treatment and other "health care operations." Providers do not have to obtain written consent before they disclose medical records but are required to inform patients of their rights and make a "good-faith effort" to obtain written acknowledgment from patients that they have received the information.
Source: HIPAA Allows Police Access To Alleged Crime Victims In Hospitals
FDA Provides Web Access to Information on Post-Approval Device Studies
(but no subscriptions or RSS feeds to show updates...hmmmm) BD
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today unveiled a new Web page that will keep the public informed about the status of post-approval patient studies for certain recently approved medical devices.
"FDA is committed to improving its medical device safety program and ensuring that medical devices remain safe and effective once they are in the hands of health professionals and the public," said Daniel Schultz, M.D., director of FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. "Electronic access will give the public an opportunity to see progress being made on a company's post-market commitments."
Modern devices provide significant health benefits, but experience has shown that the full magnitude of some potential risks doesn't always emerge during the mandatory clinical trials that are required for approval. FDA sometimes orders post-approval studies to address remaining issues such as the product's performance once it becomes more widely available or is used over a longer period of time.
Source: FDA Provides Web Access to Information on Post-Approval Device Studies
Is Pay for Performance spreading to WellPoint?
This sure sounds like another round of P4P...as patients it sure appears that we might have prevention running out our ears...but I sure hope this doesn't detract from medical care when it is needed, regardless of whether any prevention methodologies were or were not implemented...BD
WellPoint officials on Tuesday said the company will link 5% of its employees' overall annual bonuses to measures of care that health plan members receive, the Indianapolis Star reports (Rudavsky, Indianapolis Star, 4/4). Under the program, employees will receive larger bonuses if plan members increased their use of preventive health care, such as immunizations, cancer screenings and diabetes-management tools. The bonus calculations will be based on a "member health index," a formula that measures patients' overall health levels, including how often they visited the emergency department, how often they received preventive care and whether they were taking prescribed medications.
Source: WellPoint To Link 5% Of Employees' Annual Bonuses To Measures Of Care Plan Members Receive
FDA Approves C-QURLite Mesh for Hernia Repair
Having a hernia is never fun, but fixing it sure is! Hernias are repaired more than 700,000 times a year. The procedure usually involves the suturing of a mesh, which prevents the loops of the small bowel escaping out of the abdomen.
The FDA gave 510(K) approval for a new mesh product from Atrium Medical. The device's claim to fame is its unique non-polymeric Omega 3 fatty acid bioabsorbable gel coating. The coating supposedly heals more "gently" than the more commonly used polymeric coating, and leaves behind a more natural collagenous matrix with a lower risk of adhesions. The device is also coated in a bioabsorbable oil that lubes it up and eases placement inside the body.
Atria's claims are from "pre-clinical" studies, so it could be too soon to judge the device's effectiveness. In addition, "Light" meshes have been shown to have a higher rate of hernia recurrence, although they demonstrated lower rates of foreign body responses.
Read the press release here...
Product page...
Source: FDA Approves C-QURLite Mesh for Hernia Repair
by jhbarad
Free 411 from Google - a new way to find a physician or hospital
1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411)
Google has just released a very nice service which is in the experimental stage called Google Voice Local Search. The nice thing about this service is that it has voice recognition and it's pretty good. I tried this this evening and was surprised at the results. You can say a category, after selecting a city and state as you normally would with any 411 service. I chose "doctors" as a category. I then had the option to give a cross street reference or a zip code. I tried both and it works remarkably well and will connect you to the office when you select. I tried getting pretty complicated with my requests as well and it still produced reliable results....
The prompt voice will ask you for your city and state and then you can say the name of a local business. Currently, the service is only for local businesses (your Yellow Pages basically), but may be expanded to include people lookups also....BD
Source: Google Voice Local Search - Free 411 from Google!
by AK
Drobo, the "world's first storage robot"
This little unit could store a whole bunch of medical records....BD
Managing all of your data can be a little intimidating, especially if you need to keep adding more and more storage capacity without breaking the bank or running into technical snags. Well the engineers over at Data Robotics figure the solution to all of your storage needs is, of course, a storage robot. Affectionately named Drobo, the four drive array connects via USB and employs "intelligent" software to handle all of the data management and disk swapping: one drive goes down? No problem, Drobo's already on it. Wanna swap out drives while you listen to music? Drobo keeps the tunes going even when you're down to one disk. At $700 it is a little steep -- especially considering the lack of any "starter" drives bundled in -- but we suppose that in the long run, that's a small price to pay if it truly does deliver the data management nirvana we've been seeking
[Via eHomeUpgrade]
Source: Drobo, the "world's first storage robot"
by Evan Blass
Rock-Star Surgeons Tone Deaf on Communication
Posted by Laura Landro
In health-care circles surgeons have long been regarded as rock stars. They’re viewed with awe by patients and treated with deference by hospital staff. But surgeons, like some temperamental guitarists, might do well to improve their interpersonal skills.
Evidence is mounting that surgeons’ failure to communicate with patients and co-workers is a leading cause of avoidable surgical errors. A recent analysis of 460 malpractice claims that had been resolved found that nearly 20% of them were filed largely, if not entirely, because of communication breakdowns. The sobering results appear in the current issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
Source: Health Blog : Rock-Star Surgeons Tone Deaf on Communication
National provider-identifier deadline pushed back
By: Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer
When your mom let you out of cleaning your room, your professor postponed that big exam, the office called to reschedule your colonoscopy and the CMS relaxed your looming compliance deadline, the feeling is the same.
Relief, followed by anxiety for what still must be done.
Healthcare leaders of various stripes have welcomed the news that the CMS, in effect, pushed back by up to one year the May 23 deadline to comply with the national provider identifier requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
The reprieve, despite affected parties already having had nearly two years to get ready, came late in the afternoon Monday.
Source: Modern Healthcare Online
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Math–This Could be a Subject for Michael Moore to Explore and Document In a Movie
Screenings Too–Killer Algorithms Part 12–Medical Billing Codes Style
Assessing Consumer Credit Scores–Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 21 With Flawed Data
Duping” Society Combined With A World of Rogue Algorithms & Flawed Data Continues In Markets As Seen With Knight Capital This Week-Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 36
Study Fraud With EHR Technologies, Namely Medical Records/Billing Software Used by Hospitals– HHS And SEC Continue Getting Their Non-Algorithmic Fannies Kicked–Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 46
SilverScript Senior Drug Program Sanctioned by Medicare Until the Payment And Billing Algorithms are Cleaned Up-Killer Algorithms Chapter 53
