Cell Phones Safe At Hospitals

From The Mayo Clinic:

Calls made on cellular phones have no negative impact on hospital medical devices, dispelling the long-held notion that they are unsafe to use in health care facilities, according to Mayo Clinic researchers.

In a study published in the March issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, researchers say normal use of cell phones results in no noticeable interference with patient care equipment. Three hundred tests were performed over a five-month period in 2006, without a single problem incurred.

Involved in the study were two cellular phones which used different technologies from different carriers and 192 medical devices. Tests were performed at Mayo Clinic campus in Rochester.

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Seriously folks, this has really gone on long enough. This is just one of those things that no matter how much data accumulates, fear of some wacko lawyer, and some random baseless lawsuit resulting in some payout will keep cell phones out of hospitals for years to come. Are the hospitals really that desperate to charge for that daily phone use as most institutions do?

Details Emerge In Massachusetts Health Plans

From USA Today:

Health insurance policies with monthly costs of $122 to more than $800 were approved Thursday by the board overseeing Massachusetts' new law requiring everyone in the state to carry insurance.

The lowest premiums will be paid by young adults, ages 19 to 26; the highest, by those over 55. The least costly premium for those in the middle is about $175 a month. The state aims to cover all uninsured, with subsidies for those below 300% of the federal poverty level, which is about $30,000 for an individual.

As the first state in the nation to require individuals to buy insurance, Massachusetts' plan is being closely watched.

"Everyone is watching, because the perception is that if Massachusetts fails to implement this, then it gives other people less confidence that it can be done," says economist Len Nichols at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank.

The premiums are higher than some advocates say is affordable, especially when deductibles and co-payments are included.

When did eight hundred bucks a month become affordable, especially for lower income families? I think they're missing the point of catastrophic coverage at a cheap price...

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Score One For Atkins!

From ABC News:

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association adds more information to the long-running debate about what kind of diet is best for weight loss.

Several recent studies suggest that overweight people might have more success with weight loss when they follow a diet lower in carbohydrates (and higher in fat and protein) than by following the standard guidelines for a lower fat, higher carbohydrate diet.

These findings have surprised and concerned many nutritional experts. Critics have correctly pointed out that these studies didn't involve enough people and were too short in duration to draw strong conclusions or to change standard recommendations.

This new study followed patients for one year — longer than many of the previous studies.

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This may all be true, but I still would miss my pasta too much...

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Don't Get Sick This Weekend

From Medical News Today:

Canadian scientists have found that ischemic stroke sufferers are more likely to die within seven days of admission if they are admitted to hospital at the weekend than during the week.

However, they do not want this news to cause delayed admissions. Their message to patients, carers and health professionals is to get the stroke patient into an appropriate hospital as soon as possible since the race against time is the greatest priority.

Maybe that data only applies to Canada?

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Unlocking Those Locked In

From Psychology Today:

It is the stuff of nightmares: trapped in an immobilized body, unable to move a finger or bat an eyelid, yet with sight and hearing and thought undiminished. The impulse to whisper, "I love you," or to scream, "I am in pain," is smothered by one's own unresponsive muscles. To the outside world, you are all but dead. Inside, you burn with life.

Neurologists call patients who are totally paralyzed "locked-in," and diagnoses of Lou Gehrig's disease or a brain-stem stroke are among the most feared of all neurological disorders. Doctors often counsel patients and their loved ones to opt against life support before becoming fully locked-in, because such a life is thought to be unbearable.

But a German neuroscientist has found a way to give voice to 11 patients around the world with a device that converts mental activity into computer commands. His experience has led him to challenge the prevailing medical assumption that locked-in lives are not worth living.

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Choose Carefully...

From SF Gate:

An online report card is scheduled to be unveiled today in an ambitious attempt to compare more than 200 California hospitals on more than 50 quality measures ranging from maternity care to cardiac treatment and patient satisfaction.

While a dizzying array of hospital report cards already exists, the developers of the Web site CalHospitalCompare.org (www.calhospitalcompare.org) say it's the most comprehensive site for people to use when making decisions about where to receive health services.

"There is no other Web site ... that combines data from this many sources," said Dr. R. Adams Dudley, project director for the Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF, which collected and analyzed the data for the site.

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While it's always good to get more information into the hands of those can use it, I worry if folks can interpret it in a proper context. Will this encourage hospitals and Doctors to turn away their more difficult cases to protect their stats. Don't kid yourself, that could very well happen...

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Mobile Clinical Assistant

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It doesn't look like it will fit in my white coat pocket!

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Health Care Concerns Rank At The Top

From Reuters:

Access to affordable health care is the top domestic concern among Americans and a majority say the U.S. government should guarantee health insurance to every American, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll released on Thursday.

While the war in Iraq remains the top overall issue among Americans, health care is the No. 1 concern on the domestic agenda, ranked as far more important than immigration, cutting taxes or promoting traditional values, the poll said.

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FDA Not Impressed

From The NY Times:

Medicine’s march toward remote monitoring of patients hit at least a temporary roadblock yesterday.

An implanted wireless device intended to continuously monitor patients with weak hearts — and then provide the data to doctors via the Internet — did not keep enough of them out of the hospital to prove its effectiveness, according to a panel of experts assembled by the Food and Drug Administration.

The device’s manufacturer, Medtronic, has been developing wireless data-gathering technology for implanted therapeutic devices like defibrillators and insulin pumps. It aimed to make the product reviewed yesterday, a device the size of a pocket watch and known as the Chronicle implantable hemodynamic monitor, the first major implant approved solely for diagnostic monitoring.

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Seemed like it should help...

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Peanut Butter Deaths Widen

From Consumer Affairs:

The death of a West Virginia woman may be linked to Salmonella-infested Peter Pan peanut butter, bringing to three the unofficial death toll from one of the nation's largest outbreaks of food poisoning.

Mary Halstead, 85, of Weston, WV, died Jan. 10 after becoming ill on December 23, 2006, according to her son, Larry Halstead.

Salmonella is especially toxic to children, the elderly, pregnant women and individuals with chronic illnesses and compromised immune systems.

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Risky Wrestling

From the New Scientist:

As if it is not rough enough already, wrestling may provide another, more insidious hazard for participants. It appears that sweat can carry the hepatitis B virus, raising concerns that wrestlers with the virus might spread it to others through cuts and wounds.

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Exhale Your Way To Better Heatlh

From The New Scientist:

A simple breath test can sometimes detect lung cancer in patients – even those in the early stages of the disease – US researchers reported on Sunday.

The researchers developed a compact device that correctly diagnosed three-quarters of lung cancer patients in trials involving 122 people with different types of respiratory disease. The sample included 49 people with lung cancer and 21 healthy controls. However, the test also wrongly diagnosed many people with lung cancer when they did not have the disease.

The researchers say a more accurate test may be possible in principle. "The unique chemical signature of the breath of patients with lung cancer can be detected with moderate accuracy by a [colour-producing] sensor array," the researchers write.

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Searching For Better Health

Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has agreed to acquire Medstory Inc., a privately held company based in Foster City, Calif., that develops intelligent Web search technology specifically for health information. The acquisition represents a strategic move for Microsoft in the consumer health search arena and signals a long-term commitment toward the development of a broader consumer health strategy. Medstory employees will join the Health Solutions Group, a recently formed division at Microsoft that will manage product development and delivery. Financial terms were not disclosed, as part of the agreement between the organizations.

“At Microsoft, we are focused on enabling people to make the best decisions,” said Peter Neupert, corporate vice president for health strategy and leader of the Health Solutions Group. “We were impressed with the ability of Medstory’s unique technology to organize and surface the most relevant online health content, which empowers consumers who are trying to find the right information about an important life event.”

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Everyone's got a story, and now we can index and search it. Medicine 2.0?

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Russian Bird Flu

From the St. Petersburg Times:

Veterinary workers wearing masks and white protective suits carted off refuse and burned it Tuesday inside the quarantined section of the popular Bird Market as guards patrolled the perimeter.

But other parts of the market, which has been linked to an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu, remained open for business, with sellers hawking dogs, cats and fish.

“Of course it doesn’t affect the dogs,” saleswoman Maria Ivanova said, sitting in front of a cage of playful Alsatian puppies selling for $200 each.

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Yet Another Health Insurance Plan

From Reuters:

A group of U.S. hospitals on Thursday offered a plan to cover the nation's 47 million uninsured, including mandatory coverage for all and subsidies for the working poor.

The proposal by the Federation of American Hospitals, which represents about 20 percent of the industry, is the latest in a flurry of proposed schemes to solve the growing problem of the uninsured. Since 2000, about 6 million people in the United States have lost their insurance.

The hospital group's plan, estimated to increase federal spending by $115 billion, would build on the employer-based health system, under which most Americans already get coverage.

It would provide subsidies for individuals to buy insurance from their employer if they cannot afford it, or to buy tax-subsidized coverage in the open market.

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If the folks could afford the insurance, don't you think they would have purchased it. Will this encourage more employers to offer less coverage, thereby forcing their employees to buy their own coverage. Won't this increase the overall spending as a nation on healthcare when we're already at an all time high and other nations have better stats with far less expenditure?

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