Answers To Diseases

Long wait times in emergency departments have led to a resurgence of urgent care centers.
The LA Times has a piece on the phenomenon, and notes that many of these facilities have opened up in suburbs, where patients with insurance tend to live.

Physicians are often pressed for time, both in the hospital and the clinic.
And for those who don’t speak English, that represents a huge problem. Not only are many cash-strapped hospitals cutting back on interpreter services, those that have them aren’t always being utilized.
As surgeon Pauline Chen notes, “Patients who speak English poorly or not [...]

The theme of my next Live Q&A will be health IT and electronic medical records.
Primary care physician Rob Lamberts will be taking your questions. Blogging at the acclaimed Musings of a Distractible Mind, Dr. Lamberts is one of the minority of doctors who has successfully implemented and integrated electronic health records into his daily [...]

Medicare is considering throwing more bureaucracy our way.
As MedPage Today reports, because Medicare was “concerned about a rising number of hospice patients who survive longer than six months,” they are now requiring physicians to write a narrative to “describe the clinical evidence supporting a life expectancy of six months or less.”
Even worse, this comes on [...]

Here’s your chance to ask me questions about the past week’s events, such as the swine flu outbreak, my USA Today op-ed on cancer screening, the Craigslist Killer, or anything else that crosses your mind.
Just click the window below on Sunday, April 26th at 10:30pm Eastern. I’m looking forward to answering your questions.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg recently introduced an initiative to pressure the food industry to cut salt intake by half over the next decade.
Combined with the city’s ban on trans-fats and move to post calorie counts in restaurants, this is part of an emerging trend where the government is taking decisive steps to control [...]

Celebrities and professional sports players are increasingly using Twitter.
The medical profession is no exception, with more doctors, nurses, hospitals, and professional organizations opening accounts daily.
I’m cited in the ACP Internist discussing about doctors who Twitter, and along with fellow med-Twitterers Rob Lamberts, James Peabody, Phil Baumann, and Ted Eytan, discuss whether or not it’s helpful [...]

Here’s your chance to ask me questions about the past week’s events, such as the swine flu outbreak, my USA Today op-ed on cancer screening, the Craigslist Killer, or anything else that crosses your mind.
Just click the window below on Sunday, April 26th at 10:30pm Eastern. I’m looking forward to answering your questions.

The following is a reader take from the staff at HealthHarbor.
We had a chance to attend the HIMSS conference two weeks ago. HIMSS is healthcares premier annual tech expo, and was in Chicago this year. The undeniable theme of this years conference was the anticipated expansion of Health Information Technology (HIT) via the [...]