July 2008 - The Medical Quack .... by Barbara Duck

Insurance companies deny coverage based on medications a patient is taking obtained from marketing reports…

One more way for the information to run queries to cherry pick applicants is accomplished. When you apply for insurance, the fine writing will usually state that you are giving permission to check any medical information and records and, yes, this...

Published Fri, Jul 25 2008 5:32 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Insurance, drugs, healthcare, health insurance, Prescriptions, Pharmaceuticals, Medications

FDA, Military Health System tighten data sharing pact

Recently the FDA announced it was going to use the Medicare data base in the effort to mine and help find adverse drug side effects as well as other pertinent data relative to the approval and warning process in place at the FDA. This is more than...

Published Fri, Jul 25 2008 1:49 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Pharma/FDA News, personalized medicine, Genomics, Medical Records, FDA, MIT, Data Mining, DOD

Gentag and MacroArray Develop Prostate Cancer Wireless Diagnostic Processes and Technology

According to this article, a patch would transmit the results direct to a cell phone, more telemedicine in the works? If the efforts are successful, this would allow more to be tested though the technology as the results could be relayed back to...

Published Fri, Jul 25 2008 12:40 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Technology, Windows Mobile, healthcare, Medical Devices, Telemedicine, Prostate Cancer, PSA

Biogenerics Would Reduce Health Care Costs For Patients, Says Generic Pharmaceutical Association

A new possible term in the world of Biotech, Biogenerics? We currently have Pharmacogenomics working and now perhaps an interest with the Generic Drug business investing in Biotech as well or perhaps the availability of a generic without a long...

Published Fri, Jul 25 2008 12:16 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Pharma/FDA News, Biotech, FDA, Generic Drugs, Pharmaceuticals

GSK Gets on Board with The YouTube Revolution – Well Sort of…

One more Pharma company joins You Tube Channels, GSK, but this post makes a very good point, no embedding, I agree here, what’s up with Glaxo not allowing one to embed! Also as mentioned, where’s the publicity as Eye on the FDA reports that he’s...

Published Fri, Jul 25 2008 11:44 AM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Pharma/FDA News, My Commentaries, Pharma, FDA, You Tube, GSK

Yahoo offers free Zimbra email Client on your Desktop

The race for the desktop email client continues with the latest offering from Yahoo. Up until now you had to be online to work with email, now with the new Zimbra client, you can work with email offline, just as you have been able to do with Outlook...

Published Fri, Jul 25 2008 11:24 AM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Technology, Other Items of Interest, My Commentaries, Email, POP Mail, Desktop Client,

Technorat

PEAK Surgical Receives Clearance To Market PEAK(R) Surgery System For Use In General Surgery

This appears to be a replacement to the scalpel as known today. Less bleeding and better control are some of the benefits for surgeons. This gives the best of both worlds to the surgeon it appears. Other devices on the market also control...

Published Fri, Jul 25 2008 10:36 AM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Technology, Pharma/FDA News, Hospital, Surgery, Medical Devices, FDA

Physician Funnies – Real comments between Doctors and Patients

It is time for a bit of humor, which is needed from time to time. I don’t know who the author was that put all of these together, but they are funny misconceptions with conversations between MDs and their patients, and it’s real life. Communication...

Published Fri, Jul 25 2008 9:30 AM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Need a Laugh

California Wants Dr. Kevin Brown’s Medical License

It sounds like there are some pretty major issues here from alleged sexual misconduct to over prescribing Oxycodone and other fraud issues . “Dr. Brown attracted controversy earlier this year when he organized a charity fundraiser at the Playboy ...

Published Thu, Jul 24 2008 5:42 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Other Items of Interest, California, doctor, Medical License, Assault, Rape

Microsoft HealthVault and RelayHealth (McKesson) to Connect Doctors and Patients

Many of the Tenet hospitals are McKesson Clients. The Relay Health network will be able to connect to the patient’s file “The RelayHealth network then connects the consumer's portfolio of information with the care provider...

Published Thu, Jul 24 2008 5:13 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Technology, Pharma/FDA News, Microsoft/Windows News, healthcare, microsoft, Medical Records, McKesson, PHR, Personal Health Records, Healthvaut, RelayHealth

Complaints Undermine Hip Device – Zimmer Hip

The sales have been suspended until an investigation from the company can determine the problems and issues with the hip. A surgeon in Los Angeles was the initial person to voice an opinion about the cup failures. BD Zimmer Holdings...

Published Thu, Jul 24 2008 4:38 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Other Items of Interest

State freezes Medi-Cal payments to thousands of healthcare facilities - California

We all know that this means and it stands to put many small businesses at risk if they cannot get a line of credit to carry them through until a budget is passed. Nursing Home facilities stand to be hit the hardest. BD SACRAMENTO --...

Published Thu, Jul 24 2008 4:23 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Insurance

A sensible censor for sharing medical records – Anonymize medical records for research…

This could be great news as how many times do medical records need to be anonymized for research, a lot. We all remember the case with the NHS and their mistake made a few months back with the records. This will be nice too if it is...

Published Thu, Jul 24 2008 4:08 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Technology, My Commentaries, techonology, Medical Records, medicare, FDA, HIPAA, MIT, Anonymize

AHLTA (military health records software) takes hits in latest Web hall

The physicians were stating it lacked features. Recently the DOD and Military have been collaborating on the subject of medical records and looking at the system used by the VA, called Vista. The use of both systems though would require interoperability...

Published Thu, Jul 24 2008 3:51 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Other Items of Interest

Advanced Cancer Therapeutics licenses technology to develop HPV vaccine with plants

Merck may be getting some competition in time with the HPV Vaccine business, but the research here will focus on using plants, which they state will provide a vaccine at a cost less to the consumer. BD Advanced Cancer Therapeutics (ACT) has announced...

Published Thu, Jul 24 2008 3:22 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Pharma/FDA News