Thursday, March 18, 2010
The high price of septicemia
Hospital costs for treating septicemia increased by an average of almost 12% yearly from 1997 to 2007, the AHRQ said today, citing data from its Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. Costs jumped from $4.1 billion in 1997 to $12.3 billion in 2007.
Other costly conditions in the same time period:
Osteoarthritis: 9.5% annual increase($4.8 billion to $11.8 billion)
Back problems: 9.3% annual increase ($3.5 billion to $8.5 billion)
Acute kidney failure: 15.3% annual increase ($1 billion to $4 billion)
Respiratory failure: 8.8% annual increase ($3.3 billion to $7.8 billion)
The most important driver of cost increases in the hospital was the greater intensity of services provided during a hospital stay, which grew 3.1% per year from 1997 to 2007 and accounted for 70% of the total rise in hospital costs, the AHRQ said.
Labels: AHRQ, hospital costs, septicemia
posted by Jessica Berthold at
4:25 PM
0 Comments
Monday, March 15, 2010
Medical News of the Obvious
At first, the results of this study seemed totally unobvious. Researchers found that people didn't lie any more often when online dating than they did in person, reported HealthDay. Really? This finding immediately led me to wonder how many daters are wearing platform shoes and compression garments on their in-person dates.
But then it turns out the methodology was to ask people whether they lied. Mightn't the liars be likely to lie to the surveyors, too?
Regardless of whether you believe them, most of the findings were pretty entertainingly obvious: older people lied more about their age, more "extroverted" people (ahem) lied more about their past romantic experiences. And interestingly, men lied more about "how nice and polite they are," according to a study author. Can you picture that? "I told her I open doors for women, and really I never do. Heh heh."
So what's the big conclusion we can draw from all this research? Hold on to your hats. "Online daters, speed-daters, and the like seem to be just like the rest of us in most ways," said the study's author. Does that mean that the people you see on the computer are also people in real life? This is going to require further investigation.
Labels: medical news of the obvious
posted by Stacey Butterfield at
8:00 AM
0 Comments
Monday, March 8, 2010
Medical News of the Obvious
You might already be aware of this week's finding if you've watched baseball in the past decade or so and noticed that Mark McGwire's arms are about the circumference of the average ballplayer's waist in the 70s. But just to be sure, researchers recently compared the BMIs of professional baseball players from 1876 to 2007 to find that, like serving sizes and master bathrooms, they've gotten bigger.
Clear, right? But in taking the next step, drawing conclusions from this study, this article from HealthDay gets about as confused as a science article can be. The study authors are concerned because they correlated the ballplayers' "increased BMIs with an increased risk of death." (We're assuming that's a risk of premature death, since it seems pretty certain that the 1876 team would be dead regardless of their % body fat.)
But a critic of the study argued first that ballplayers' increasing size is not a health risk, and then that the players might be dying early because they're using steroids. Um, we're not scientists, but mightn't there be a relationship (even a causal one, perhaps?) between steroid use and increased BMI?
posted by Stacey Butterfield at
8:00 AM
2 Comments
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Wash your hands or your badge will buzz
Doctors at the University of Florida invented a device that sniffs employees' hands for soap residue to check whether they've washed them enough.
After employees wash their hands, they pass them under the sniffer and their badge activates. When they later approach a patient, a bed-side monitor reads the badge and flashes green if the person has clean hands. If the person didn't wash or too much time has passed since they have, the badge vibrates to remind the employee.
We'd already covered bathing hands with plasma instead of soap. Don't get those near the sniffer.
Labels: handwashing, humor, MRSA, superbugs
posted by Ryan DuBosar at
9:00 PM
0 Comments
Monday, March 1, 2010
Medical News of the Obvious
You might not have guessed it from how we're beating up on them at the Olympics, but Americans are fatter and lazier than Canadians. At least according to a new study, published by Arthritis Care & Research but conducted at the Toronto Western Research Institute (hmm, do you get the feeling they might be less than totally impartial in this US/Canuck comparison?).
Anyway, the researchers concluded that it's Americans' slothful habits that cause us to develop more arthritis than our northern peers. As you've probably already guessed, the solution to this problem is obvious, too. "Public health initiatives that promote healthy weight and physical activity," recommended a study author, according to HealthDay.
Labels: medical news of the obvious
posted by Stacey Butterfield at
8:00 AM
0 Comments
Contact ACP Hospitalist
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Blog log
Members of the American College of Physicians contribute posts from their own sites to ACP Internist and ACP Hospitalist. Contributors include:
Albert Fuchs, MD
Albert Fuchs, MD, FACP,
graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles School of
Medicine, where he also did his internal medicine training.
Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, Dr. Fuchs
spent three years as a full-time faculty member at UCLA School of
Medicine before opening his private practice in Beverly Hills in
2000.
David Katz, MD
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACP, is an internationally renowned
authority on nutrition, weight management, and the prevention of
chronic disease, and an internationally recognized leader in
integrative medicine and patient-centered care.
DrDialogue
Juliet K. Mavromatis, MD, FACP, provides a conversation about
health topics for patients and health professionals.
Dr. Mintz' Blog
Matthew Mintz, MD, FACP, has practiced internal medicine for more
than a decade and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at an
academic medical center on the East Coast. His time is split
between teaching medical students and residents, and caring for
patients.
Everything Health
Toni Brayer, MD, FACP, blogs about the rapid changes in science,
medicine, health and healing in the 21st century.
FutureDocs
Vineet Arora, MD, FACP, is Associate Program Director for the
Internal Medicine Residency and Assistant Dean of Scholarship &
Discovery at the Pritzker School of Medicine for the University of
Chicago. Her education and research focus is on resident duty
hours, patient handoffs, medical professionalism, and quality of
hospital care. She is also an academic hospitalist.
Glass
Hospital
John H. Schumann, MD, FACP, provides transparency on the workings
of medical practice and the complexities of hospital care,
illuminates the emotional and cognitive aspects of caregiving and
decision-making from the perspective of an active primary care
physician, and offers behind-the-scenes portraits of hospital
sanctums and the people who inhabit them.
Gut Check
Ryan Madanick, MD, ACP Member, is a gastroenterologist at the
University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and the Program
Director for the GI & Hepatology Fellowship Program. He
specializes in diseases of the esophagus, with a strong interest in
the diagnosis and treatment of patients who have
difficult-to-manage esophageal problems such as refractory GERD,
heartburn, and chest pain.
I'm dok
ACP Member Mike Aref, MD, PhD, ACP Member, is an academic
hospitalist with an interest in basic and clinical science and
education, with interests in noninvasive monitoring and diagnostic
testing using novel bedside imaging modalities, diagnostic
reasoning, medical informatics, new medical education modalities,
pre-code/code management, palliative care, patient-physician
communication, quality improvement, and quantitative biomedical
imaging.
Just Oncology
Richard Just, MD, ACP Member, has 36 years in clinical practice of hematology and medical oncology. His blog is a joint publication with Gregg Masters, MPH.
KevinMD
Kevin Pho, MD, ACP Member, offers one of the Web's definitive sites
for influential health commentary.
MD
Whistleblower
Michael Kirsch, MD, FACP, addresses the joys and challenges of
medical practice, including controversies in the doctor-patient
relationship, medical ethics and measuring medical quality. When
he's not writing, he's performing colonoscopies.
Medical
Lessons
Elaine Schattner, MD, ACP Member, shares her ideas on education,
ethics in medicine, health care news and culture. Her views on
medicine are informed by her past experiences in caring for
patients, as a researcher in cancer immunology, and as a patient
who's had breast cancer.
Prescriptions
David M. Sack, MD, FACP, practices general gastroenterology at a
small community hospital in Connecticut. His blog is a series of
musings on medicine, medical care, the health care system and
medical ethics, in no particular order.
Reflections
of a Grady Doctor
Kimberly Manning, MD, FACP, reflects on the personal side of being
a doctor in a community hospital in Atlanta.
Technology in (Medical) Education
Neil Mehta, MBBS, MS, FACP, is interested in use of technology in
education, social media and networking, practice management and
evidence-based medicine tools, personal information and knowledge
management.
White Coat Underground
Peter A. Lipson, MD, ACP Member, is a practicing internist and
teaching physician in Southeast Michigan. The blog, which has been
around in various forms since 2007, offers musings on the
intersection of science, medicine, and culture.
ACP Internist and ACP Hospitalist also contribute to and draw upon content from Get Better Health, a network created by Val Jones, MD, to support and promote health care professional bloggers, provide insightful and trustworthy health commentary, and help to inform health policy makers about the clinician's point of view on health care reform, science, research and patient care.
Other blogs of note:
American
Journal of Medicine
Also known as the Green Journal, the American Journal of Medicine
publishes original clinical articles of interest to physicians in
internal medicine and its subspecialities, both in academia and
community-based practice.
Clinical Correlations
A collaborative medical blog started by Neil Shapiro, MD, ACP
Member, associate program director at New York University Medical
Center's internal medicine residency program. Faculty, residents
and students contribute case studies, mystery quizzes, news,
commentary and more.
db's Medical
Rants
Robert M. Centor, MD, FACP, contributes short essays contemplating
medicine and the health care system.
Interact
MD
Michael Benjamin, MD, ACP member, doesn't accept industry money so
he can create an independent, clinician-reviewed space on the
Internet for physicians to report and comment on the medical news
of the day.
PLoS
Blog
The Public Library of Science's open access materials include a
blog.
White Coat Rants
One of the most popular anonymous blogs written by an emergency
room physician.
