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Above the Fold

Med School: It’s Not What You Think It Is

Jan 18, 2012• 10

By DINOSAUR, MD

I am so tired of seeing statements like these:

– Nutrition is not taught in medical school.
– Pain management is not taught in medical school.
– Practice management is not taught in medical school.

All three of those statements, and the vast majority of others bemoaning the shortcomings of medical education just because “XYZ isn’t taught in medical school” are right, but oh so wrong.

“Nutrition” is not taught in medical school. What we learn is biochemistry, metabolism, gastrointestinal and endocrine anatomy and physiology. We may not learn “nutrition” per se, but we learn what we need to know to understand nutrition in a more fundamental and comprehensive way than can be gleaned from any course in “nutrition”. This also means we understand nutrition differently — and more completely — than anyone without that same level of medical education can, however much they’ve read about nutrition.

“Pain management” is not taught in medical school. What we learn is neuroanatomy, pharmacology, behavioral psychology, and neurophysiology, so that we have the basic knowledge to understand pain management. Narcotics dosing, epidural steroid injection techniques, rehab protocols and so on are learned in residency. I agree that pain is often not well managed, but not because “it’s not taught in medical school.”Continue reading…

Only Handle It Once (OHIO)

Jan 18, 2012• 1

By John Halamka, MD

In my recent post Work Induced Attention Deficit Disorder, several commenters asked how I stay focused and productive, speculating that I leverage my limited need for sleep.

Although having a 20 hour day helps, the real secret is that I end each day with an empty inbox. I have no paper in my office. I do not keep files other than those that are required for compliance purposes.

The end result is that for every document I’m asked to read, every report I’m ask to write, and every situation I’m asked to management, I only handle the materials once.

What does this mean?

In a typical week, I’m asked to review 4 or 5 articles for journals. Rather than leaving them to be read at some later time or reading them then deferring the review, I read and review them the day they are assigned. This enables me to read them once and write the review very efficiently since all the facts are fresh in my mind.

Restoring Office Workflows to the EMR: Or How I Restored Patient Face Time and Got Back the Joy in Medicine

Jan 17, 2012• 28

By MARGARET POLANECZKY, MD

A report from The Blog That Ate Manhattan:

The Problem : Lost Face Time = Lost Joy

One day, about 5 years into using the electronic medical record in my practice, I came to the realization that I wasn’t having fun anymore. I was sitting throughout most of every office encounter facing a computer screen, my back to the patient on the exam table across the room. The joy of face to face interaction with people, the real reason I went into medicine in the first place, had been replaced with the more pressing urgency of data entry.

My revisit routine went something like this – I’d enter the room, briefly greet the patient (undressed and sitting on the exam table) and then, apologetically saying “Let me just open your chart”, I’d log on and begin interacting with the more immediately demanding presence in the room – the EMR. I’d turn around as often as I could to look at my patient, but mostly I listened but kept my back to her and I typed. After which I’d rush over to her side, do the exam, then head back over to the computer to make sure I got all her orders, refills and charges in as required. A brief goodbye, and I was on to my next patient.

As more and more mandatory clicks were demanded from the EMR to prove I was a good doctor – smoking history reviewed (click), medication reconciliation (click, click, click,click), problem list review (erase duplicates from ENT , remove resolved problems, add today’s, then click that I had reviewed what I just did) – the actual moments of face time with my patients had became smaller and smaller, till they were almost an annoying distraction from the real task at hand – finishing my charts.

Health 2.0 News

Jan 17, 2012

Over on our sister site, the Health 2.0 News Blog, you’ll find this week’s news bites – Take Care Clinics launch online scheduling, BitGym releases a new fitness app, Ford to embed wireless health devices in its vehicles of the future and a new study evaluates the impact of online diabetes tools.

Should Your Doctor Be Thinking About Society’s Healthcare Costs?

Jan 17, 2012• 5

By David Shaywitz

You probably want your doctor to care about people, but how much do you want her to care about all of them? That’s the question I ask when I read articles – generally by bioethicists, often respectable ones – asserting that one of the moral responsibilities of physicians is to be responsible stewards of the healthcare dollar.

This rhetoric concerns me, because I worry it may ultimately degrade the already-challenged physician-patient relationship.

The cornerstone of medicine, the most fundamental principle, in my mind, is the absolute, rock-solid belief that your doctor is your unqualified advocate and will work as hard as possible to provide you with the best medical treatment possible, as if you were a member of her own family (Dr. Marty Samuels and I originally described this as “The Uncle Marvin Test”).

To be clear: this doesn’t mean the most expensive pills – by all means prescribe or substitute an equivalent generic, when available. This doesn’t mean the most expensive diagnostic studies – it’s generally in the patient’s medical interest to avoid unnecessary procedures that usually carry some intrinsic risk and also can lead to false positive results that can in turn lead to needless anxiety — and on occasion, permanent harm. This doesn’t mean extra days in the hospital – a hospital is one of the world’s most dangerous places, and it’s often in a patient’s best interest to be discharged as soon as possible (see here if you need more convincing).

The Awkward World of Private Insurance in the UK

Jan 16, 2012• 10

By Bob Wachter, MD

I remember reading an article that observed that systems of universal insurance – which need to put their energy into providing a “decent minimum” for the masses – must also offer a “safety valve for the wealthy disaffected.” Canada bans private insurance for basic hospital and medical care services. So, when affluent Canadians want “the best,” some of them pop across the border to Cleveland or Ann Arbor.

But from the time of its founding in 1948, the British National Health Service has allowed – and, depending on which party is in power, promoted – a private insurance market. Private insurance in a single payer, government run healthcare system is a funny animal: one part incest, one part conflict of interest, and three parts strange bedfellows. And it’s infinitely fascinating. Here’s how it works:

The insurance part isn’t too difficult to understand. People living in Britain can obtain private insurance, and about 10 percent of them do. About one-third of people with private insurance purchase it with their own money, while the rest receive it as a benefit of employment. Many of the big multinationals provide such insurance, either to all their employees or to senior executives. It’s considered a plum perk for everyone, and most expats coming to work in the UK consider it an essential benefit.

A Win-Win: Job Creation Will Grow the Economy and Improve Health

Jan 16, 2012• 7

By Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D. and Mark Pinsky

The current economic recovery effort presents an opportunity to build stronger, healthier communities. That’s a central goal for the Create Jobs for USA Fund that Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) and Starbucks launched late last year to support job creation and retention.

Economic growth and job creation provide more than income and the ability to afford health insurance and medical care. They also enable us to live in safer homes and neighborhoods, buy healthier food, have more leisure time for physical activity, and experience less health-harming stress. The research clearly shows that health starts in our homes and communities and not in the doctor’s office.

In that way, economic policy is, in fact, health policy.

Since 1985, OFN’s national network of community development financial institutions (CDFIs) has loaned more than $23 billion to benefit low-income, low-wealth, and other disadvantaged communities. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), with an endowment of around $8.5 billion, is the nation’s largest philanthropy focused solely on improving health and health care for all Americans. Marrying the business acumen of CDFIs and others to health philanthropy’s ability to supply the research, analysis, and expertise to make sure community development activities improve residents’ health is a powerful union.

Why This Well-Known Biotech Firm Deploys 17,000 iPads and iPhones

Jan 16, 2012• 3

By ERIC LAI

There were some impressive enterprise deployments discussed at the AppNation conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

I’ll lead off with Genentech, the Bay Area biotech firm that is now a subsidiary of Roche. Their 7,000 iPad rollout was news to me, and ranks them sixth on my list of largest iPad deployments in the world.

(View the entire list of more than 530 enterprises that have publicly-confirmed iPad deployments here).

According to mobile application team manager, Paul Lanzi, Genentech has standardized on Apple for mobile, with 17,000 iOS device users worldwide (so by inference, 10,000 iPhones, though it surprises me less and less when I hear about companies deploying iPod Touches, too). All of the Apple devices are corporate-owned, as the company doesn’t do Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Genentech does have 15,000 BlackBerry users, but they are only allowed to do e-mail, no apps. It doesn’t support Android due to the fragmentation-related hassle. “It’s a really tricky one,” Lanzi said.

While many firms talk about how their device deployments are driven by the ROI they hope to get from using apps, Genentech is actually following through. The company has deployed 60-some apps to employees. Indeed, Genentech rolled out its first mobile Web page even before the iPhone was released, said Lanzi. “We’ve already retired some apps,” he said.Continue reading…

Can You Really Fire Your Insurance, Mitt?

Jan 15, 2012

By TRUDY LIEBERMAN

Romney’s remark last week about firing your insurance company apparently harmed him little in the New Hampshire primary. But as the quote has rocketed around, it might be misleading some into thinking that the Massachusetts health care reforms that Romney signed into law made it so people can willy-nilly get rid of an insurer that doesn’t pay their claims on time.

The comment deserves a second look. Can you really fire your insurance company? The answer is that it’s darn difficult even in Massachusetts—the land of Romneycare.Continue reading…

Sizing Up the Obama Administration’s Defense of the Health Reform Law

Jan 15, 2012• 13

By Henry J. Aaron

Back in 2009, when the Affordable Care Act was being written, few doubted that Congress can constitutionally impose a tax penalty on people who refuse to carry adequate insurance. Congress’s power to regulate insurance markets under the Constitution’s commerce clause is settled law. While it seemed clear that Congress has the constitutional power to mandate coverage, some doubted the political wisdom of using that power. Simply forcing people to buy insurance seemed too much like a mean parent saying “eat-your-broccoli, or no dessert.” The mandate, it was feared, would arouse needless opposition. The opposition was needless because most people could be encouraged to buy coverage with positive incentives to enroll, such as direct subsidies, and penalties for refusal to enroll, such as extended denial of access to subsidies and exclusion from insurance market protections.

To the surprise of many, opponents of the Affordable Care Act took the broccoli analogy literally. Not buying insurance is simply inactivity, they argued. If government can prohibit this form of inactivity by forcing people to buy insurance, it can force them to buy anything, even broccoli. If Congress can prohibit such ‘inaction,’ they argued, freedom is in jeopardy. More to the point, the constitution doesn’t allow limits on ‘inactivity.’

The appeal to the broad public of the argument that not buying insurance is inactivity may not have been surprising. But the acceptance of the argument by some federal judges is downright astounding, as the distinction rests on a fundamental ignorance of how insurance markets work.