Wednesday, October 28, 2009
QD: News Every Day--public option unsettles Senators
ACP Internist's daily digest of news and events wraps up how the public option has shifted the balance of opinion in the Senate, how the public itself has shifted on H1N1 vaccination, and the economic impact of a rural physician.
Health care reform
The introduction of a public option has precariously shifted Senators' support. Democrats are divided. What bi-partisan support there was has evaporated. Liberals are happy, but that won't carry the day. (AP, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe)
H1N1 influenza
Some hospitals are seeing their emergency department patient volumes double from H1N1 influenza as doctors are being recruited as the flu police, trying to prioritize who gets vaccinated. To ease the crunch, more than 22 million doses of H1N1 flu vaccine are now available now, and health officials are still saying better late than never. (USA Today, New York Times, AP/MSBNC.com)
Data produced by a supercomputer shows that there could be a third wave of the H1N1 virus in the spring. The University of Texas is using
the "Ranger" supercomputer to make its predictions. (KXAN-TV)
Handshaking was out, and now so is the simple fist bump. Here's some humorous ways to greet people. (NPR)
In case you missed it ...
Doctors' economic contributions are as important to rural communities as their medical ones. The National Center for Rural Health Works estimates that a rural hospital loses $236,565 from clinic visits and $451,169 net revenue for every half-a-physician they are short. When extrapolated to include services purchased by the physician, the clinic and employees, the shortage translates to 13.8 jobs and $533,493 in income. (Iowa Independent)
Irving Harper, ACP Member, discusses how he handles his patients with e-mail, cell phone and video chat. Ahhh, but it's good to practice in Hawaii. (U.S. News & World Report).
Labels: H1N1, health care reform, health information technology, QD, telemedicine, vaccination
posted by Ryan DuBosar at
11:32 AM
0 Comments
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Stroke '09: Reaching the underserved
One of the biggest issues in stroke care is how to help patients in "neurologically underserved" hospitals-- places that either don't have access to a specialist, or where a specialist isn't always available to help in the emergency department. (A situation, btw, which can occur in urban hospitals as well as those in rural areas.) Telemedicine (consultation with stroke experts via audio and video feeds) and "drip and ship" (transferring patients to regional stroke centers after they get tPA) are two increasingly common ways to deal with the issue. And both got a vote of confidence in new studies presented at Stroke '09.
Catalina Ionita, MD, University at Buffalo Neurosurgery, Inc., compared outcomes of thrombolyzed stroke patients at a telemedicine "hub" hospital (Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital in Buffalo, NY), with those of the 10 "spoke" hospitals it served. While there were some differences in terms of length of stay and stroke severity, the clinical outcomes were basically the same for patients treated at both-- suggesting that access to a top-notch stroke team via telemedicine is essentially as good as being seen by one personally.
A second study gave a boost to the growing practice of "drip and ship", whereby patients get tPA treatment at a community hospital, and are then transferred to a regional stroke center for follow-up care. Outcomes were similar for patients given tPA at community hospitals and then transferred, vs. those given tPA at the regional stroke center from the start. That's good news, since the alternative to drip and ship is to immediately transfer a community hospital patient to a regional center for tPA, which can be problematic given the 3-hour window for administering the treatment.
Labels: Stroke 2009, telemedicine, tPA
posted by Jessica Berthold at
3:29 PM
2 Comments
ACP Internist hosted Grand Rounds on June 16, wrapping up the best of the medical blogosphere. Click here for the complete wrap-up.
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Previous Posts
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- QD: News Every Day--Santa's take on H1N1 influenza...
- QD: News Every Day--when evidence and politics col...
- Ghostwriting haunts Congress' hallowed halls
- QD: News Every Day--payment fix inches forward (fo...
- QD: News Every Day--not the intended effect
- Medical news of the obvious
- QD: News Every Day--flu's growing tally
- QD: News Every Day--no holidays for Congress
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