Remember typewriters? We sure have come a long way since then. Granted, those clunky old machines were wonderfully straightforward—a few keys, the occasional bottle of Wite-Out®, and you were all set. But before you start getting nostalgic for the good old days, consider this: contemporary word processing programs such as Microsoft Word offer countless ways to compose, organize, and enhance written documents quickly and more efficiently in the workplace. And in the healthcare setting, its high degree of usability makes Word the premier choice for creating professional-quality documents for a broad range of purposes.
For the full article please go here.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Countering Conflict in the Workplace from Nurse Together.
The following is an excerpt of the NurseTogether.com Community members’ online chat with Dr. Catherine Garner, Dean of Health Sciences and Nursing at American Sentinel University.
NT.com: Today, we are hosting a chat session focused on "Countering Conflict in the Workplace." Our special co-hosts today are Dr. Catherine Garner, Dean of Health Sciences and Nursing at American Sentinel University, and Pam Broyles, Senior Manager for Education and Training at Sarah Cannon Research Institute. Pam is also a graduate student in American Sentinel University's Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program. I feel very passionate about this topic, and I'm glad that we are addressing it today.
For the full article please go here.
NT.com: Today, we are hosting a chat session focused on "Countering Conflict in the Workplace." Our special co-hosts today are Dr. Catherine Garner, Dean of Health Sciences and Nursing at American Sentinel University, and Pam Broyles, Senior Manager for Education and Training at Sarah Cannon Research Institute. Pam is also a graduate student in American Sentinel University's Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program. I feel very passionate about this topic, and I'm glad that we are addressing it today.
For the full article please go here.
Monday, December 26, 2011
8 key issues for population health management in 2012 from HealthIT.com
Recently, the Care Continuum Alliance, an advocate for population health management, surveyed industry leaders to assess the market and predict key issues for 2012. According to the alliance’s white paper, two predominant themes were brought to light as a result of the survey.
“First, significant market movement will occur toward accountability and value creation in healthcare, driven partly by new physician-guided and collaborative models,” according to the report. “And second, population health management is well-positioned to add value to and support these emerging models, but must continue to build the case for wellness and prevention.”
Here are eight additional key issues, identified in the report, that could affect population health management in 2012.
1. Accountable care and the Medicare Shared Savings program. Many comments from survey respondents centered on accountable care and collaborative models, as well as federal support for both. According to the report, population health has a lot to offer collaborative care, such as health risk assessment and predictive modeling, HIT infrastructure, data analytics, care coordination and other core competencies. “But tempering optimism around accountable care models were caveats,” the report noted. One respondent summed it up: “If ACOs become a reality and are structured in a way that provides a real incentive for managing health, they could be a major market opportunity. If they just become HMOs redux, not much will change."
For the full article please go here.
“First, significant market movement will occur toward accountability and value creation in healthcare, driven partly by new physician-guided and collaborative models,” according to the report. “And second, population health management is well-positioned to add value to and support these emerging models, but must continue to build the case for wellness and prevention.”
Here are eight additional key issues, identified in the report, that could affect population health management in 2012.
1. Accountable care and the Medicare Shared Savings program. Many comments from survey respondents centered on accountable care and collaborative models, as well as federal support for both. According to the report, population health has a lot to offer collaborative care, such as health risk assessment and predictive modeling, HIT infrastructure, data analytics, care coordination and other core competencies. “But tempering optimism around accountable care models were caveats,” the report noted. One respondent summed it up: “If ACOs become a reality and are structured in a way that provides a real incentive for managing health, they could be a major market opportunity. If they just become HMOs redux, not much will change."
For the full article please go here.
When Medicare Isn't Medicare from Huffington Post
Let's say you have a Ford and decide to replace everything under the hood with Hyundai parts, including the engine and transmission. Could you still honestly market your car as a Ford?
That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright about GOP Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to "save" Medicare, Republicans or Democrats.
If you overhaul the Medicare system like you did your Ford and tell the public it's still Medicare, are you doing so honestly?
As I noted last week, PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Time's fact checker, decided that the Democrats' claim that Ryan's plan would mean the end of Medicare was so blatantly untrue it merited designation as the 2011 "Lie of the Year." Republicans, whose erroneous claims about health care reform garnered "Lie of the Year" prizes in 2009 and 2010, cheered. Democrats, as you might imagine, jeered -- as did some journalists and pundits.
For the full article please go here.
That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright about GOP Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to "save" Medicare, Republicans or Democrats.
If you overhaul the Medicare system like you did your Ford and tell the public it's still Medicare, are you doing so honestly?
As I noted last week, PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Time's fact checker, decided that the Democrats' claim that Ryan's plan would mean the end of Medicare was so blatantly untrue it merited designation as the 2011 "Lie of the Year." Republicans, whose erroneous claims about health care reform garnered "Lie of the Year" prizes in 2009 and 2010, cheered. Democrats, as you might imagine, jeered -- as did some journalists and pundits.
For the full article please go here.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Things Medicare Won't Tell You from Yahoo News
1. "We fork over millions for unproven procedures."
Medicare spends millions of dollars each year on treatments that many medical experts deem unnecessary. One example: Digital mammograms. These are often more expensive than traditional mammograms but not necessarily better for older women. A five-year clinical trial conducted by the National Cancer Institute found that digital mammograms were no more effective in finding cancers in women 50 and older than traditional mammograms. But the number of digital mammograms that Medicare paid for has risen from 426,000 in 2003 to nearly 6 million in 2008 -- a jump that increased the cost of breast cancer screening by more than $350 million, according to an analysis by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative news organization.
Medicare also often pays significantly more for liquid-based cytology, a screen for cervical cancer, than it does for routine pap smears, even though a large 2009 study found that the expensive test is no more effective than the traditional procedure when it comes to detecting cancer. Using the newer, more expnsive test costs Medicare an extra $90 million since 2003, according to The Center for Public Integrity. Another point of contention is that Medicare pays for screening colonoscopies for people over 75 despite the fact that the United States Preventative Task Force "recommends against routine screening for colorectal cancer in adults age 76 to 85 years."
For the full article please go here.
Medicare spends millions of dollars each year on treatments that many medical experts deem unnecessary. One example: Digital mammograms. These are often more expensive than traditional mammograms but not necessarily better for older women. A five-year clinical trial conducted by the National Cancer Institute found that digital mammograms were no more effective in finding cancers in women 50 and older than traditional mammograms. But the number of digital mammograms that Medicare paid for has risen from 426,000 in 2003 to nearly 6 million in 2008 -- a jump that increased the cost of breast cancer screening by more than $350 million, according to an analysis by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative news organization.
Medicare also often pays significantly more for liquid-based cytology, a screen for cervical cancer, than it does for routine pap smears, even though a large 2009 study found that the expensive test is no more effective than the traditional procedure when it comes to detecting cancer. Using the newer, more expnsive test costs Medicare an extra $90 million since 2003, according to The Center for Public Integrity. Another point of contention is that Medicare pays for screening colonoscopies for people over 75 despite the fact that the United States Preventative Task Force "recommends against routine screening for colorectal cancer in adults age 76 to 85 years."
For the full article please go here.
Monday, December 19, 2011
A New Threat: Patient Predatory Lending Claims from Medical Malpractice Blog
Michael J. Sacopulos, Esq.
An doctor was sued several weeks ago for her use of a healthcare financing company. The suit was brought as a class action and is based upon consumer fraud laws. The allegations center around the way the credit application was presented and when it was signed by the patient. The patient claims that she did not understand that she was signing a credit application and that the practice performed unnecessary work in an effort to collect the entire amount of her line of credit. The doctor needs to prepare for a long, painful process. This is not a medical malpractice case, so normal professional liability policies will not cover it. Further, given the general public’s current hostility towards finance firms, there is a risk to taking the case to a jury.
Basically, this is a predatory lending case. Predatory lending is a general description for activities that violate consumer laws. A common element to most predatory lending cases include the lender or lender’s agent engaging in fraud or deception to conceal the true nature of the loan obligation from an unsuspecting or unsophisticated borrower. This means that a practice could be sued based on what information was presented to a patient or for how a signature of the application was secured.
For the full article please go here.
An doctor was sued several weeks ago for her use of a healthcare financing company. The suit was brought as a class action and is based upon consumer fraud laws. The allegations center around the way the credit application was presented and when it was signed by the patient. The patient claims that she did not understand that she was signing a credit application and that the practice performed unnecessary work in an effort to collect the entire amount of her line of credit. The doctor needs to prepare for a long, painful process. This is not a medical malpractice case, so normal professional liability policies will not cover it. Further, given the general public’s current hostility towards finance firms, there is a risk to taking the case to a jury.
Basically, this is a predatory lending case. Predatory lending is a general description for activities that violate consumer laws. A common element to most predatory lending cases include the lender or lender’s agent engaging in fraud or deception to conceal the true nature of the loan obligation from an unsuspecting or unsophisticated borrower. This means that a practice could be sued based on what information was presented to a patient or for how a signature of the application was secured.
For the full article please go here.
Sun's UV Rays May Stop Spread Of Chickenpox from Medical News Today.
If you look at the evidence to date from a different perspective, a virologist at St George's Hospital, University of London in the UK believes it suggests the sun's UV rays inactivate the chickenpox virus on the skin before it has a chance to transmit to another person, thus explaining why the disease spreads less readily in tropical countries. Dr Phil Rice told the press last week he hopes his findings will lead to new ways to prevent chickenpox and its more severe cousin, shingles.
The idea that ultraviolet (UV) rays can inactivate viruses is not new, but this is the first time that such firm conclusions have been made in connection with the varicella-zoster virus, the herpes virus responsible for chickenpox and shingles.
Writing about his work earlier this year in Virology Journal, Rice shows how chickenpox is much less common in parts of the world with high levels of UV rays compared with places where the levels are low, and why in temperate zones, the disease peaks in winter and spring, when UV rays are at their lowest.
For the full article please go here.
The idea that ultraviolet (UV) rays can inactivate viruses is not new, but this is the first time that such firm conclusions have been made in connection with the varicella-zoster virus, the herpes virus responsible for chickenpox and shingles.
Writing about his work earlier this year in Virology Journal, Rice shows how chickenpox is much less common in parts of the world with high levels of UV rays compared with places where the levels are low, and why in temperate zones, the disease peaks in winter and spring, when UV rays are at their lowest.
For the full article please go here.
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