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

Leading Medical Groups Advise Against Avandia – FDA to Research – Education Needed

I will once more mention a potential change of paradigms here with educating the public. Each patient who took the drug is unique. Do we have any information on other drugs they were taking at the same time? Groups will continue to...

Published Fri, Oct 31 2008 2:27 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Pharma/FDA News, Other Items of Interest, drugs, healthcare, Pharma, PHR, FDA, Marketing, paradigms, personal heatlh records

Washington University scientists first to sequence genome of cancer patient

10 genetic mutations were found in the patient's tumor and virtually every cell in the tumor sample had nine of the mutations. “What's striking about the new research is that the scientists were able to sift through the 3 billion pairs of...

Published Fri, Oct 31 2008 1:56 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Technology, Pharma/FDA News, Other Items of Interest, Genomics, Cancer, R and D, DNA Testing, Sequencing

Fred Baron Dies, Despite Being Given Tysabri

Even folks with money and in high positions have problems getting access to cancer drugs, as you can read below, and this was not an issue of not being able to afford the medication. When you read items as such, it makes you stop and think how precious...

Published Fri, Oct 31 2008 1:44 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Pharma/FDA News, Other Items of Interest, drugs, Cancer, Tysabri, Access to medications, Cancer Drugs, Fred Baron, Biogen

Massachusetts Desperate Hospitals - MetroWest Medical Center's vital signs are weak

According to the article, there’s still time to save the hospitals and no plans on closing at this point, but it’s the same thing faced all over the US, no money, and 50% of the hospitals in the US border on solvency, and sure hate to see that number...

Published Fri, Oct 31 2008 1:24 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Insurance, Other Items of Interest, Hospitals, Budgets, Heatlhcare, Insolvency, bankruptcy, Desperate Hospitals, Finances, Heatlh Insurance

Cardo Medical Announces FDA Clearance Of The Align 360 Total Knee System

The new knee won’t be available until next year; however the web site states that the device will be able to be customized, in other words more of a custom fit instead of a one size that fits all. Hopefully the new design might offer a little longer lifetime...

Published Fri, Oct 31 2008 12:53 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Pharma/FDA News, Other Items of Interest, Surgery, FDA, Heatlhcare, Knee replacement, 360 Knee system

Schwarzenegger Will Propose Major Cuts to Health and Human Services on Top of Education Cuts

Not to fault the governor here totally, he has to work with what the legislature put in place and we all know what a battle that was with hospitals, nursing homes, etc. that were put on hold this year with no payments for 3 months until a budget was created...

Published Fri, Oct 31 2008 12:38 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Insurance, Other Items of Interest

Painbuster System from B. Braun – Catheter system to delivery pain relief directly to the wound area

This has been started in the UK and could certainly reduce the amount of pain reliving pills needed post surgery and the entire unit is disposable, so the medication goes to where the pain is instead of having to go to our brains first. No word...

Published Fri, Oct 31 2008 12:19 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Technology, Surgery, UK, Painkiller, B Braun

GSK's Witty wants more funds for FDA – Why not step up to the plate with some grants and join the General Education process

This actually a pretty good start and I have had my own campaign of sorts going on with getting the FDA up to speed, and they are definitely having to play catch up, as are some other government agencies. In prior posts I had written that some clinical...

Published Fri, Oct 31 2008 11:45 AM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Pharma/FDA News, My Commentaries, healthcare, Education, Pharma, FDA, Personal Health Records, GSK, Consumer Healthcare, Drug Interactions

E-Prescribing Reminder – Effective January 1, Medicare will pay 2% bonus to those who use a “Qualified” program or system

A qualified system is not faxing! Many offices who are set up with an EMR or EHR are already covered and are either set up and ready to go or have the capabilities. For those who are not, there’s a permanent link on this page to NEPSI, the...

Published Fri, Oct 31 2008 10:57 AM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Technology, Insurance, Pharma/FDA News, drugs, healthcare, medicare, health insurance, Physicians, Prescriptions, e-prescribing

CVS/Caremark join the Generic Discount Club – Connect information to Personal Health Record Accounts

$9.99 for 90 days with enrollment with the Health Savings Pass CVS becomes the latest retail drug chain to jump on the bandwagon, pretty close in comparison, except you need to join the Health Savings Plan. The plan is primarily created for cash...

Published Fri, Oct 31 2008 1:51 AM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Insurance, Pharma/FDA News, drugs, PHR, Google Health, Prescriptions, Generic Drugs, Personal Health Records, HealthVault, CVS, Discounts, Minute Clinic

Cholesterol-lowering drugs may also lower PSA, but stopping cancer risk effect is unknown

According to the study, statins are lowering the PSA levels, but the concern is whether or not this could be hiding or clouding the issues and cancer could be potentially missed in the diagnosis as they are not sure if this is lowering the test numbers...

Published Thu, Oct 30 2008 10:52 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Pharma/FDA News, Genomics, Cancer, Prostate Cancer, PSA, Statins, Urology

Will We Vote Against a Candidate's DNA in 4 years?

This is a very interesting article as we have all read about athletes and looking at their DNA, so instead of medical records in 4 years we might be digging though a candidate’s DNA. For the snoop and people type of publications this could get real...

Published Thu, Oct 30 2008 9:21 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Technology, Other Items of Interest, My Commentaries

Resources on the Medical Quack – Added Clinical Trial Update Information

Well I have been busy moving things around again! Not too bad I think though, just a few changes. Thanks so much again for everyone who takes time to stop by! One new item is a widget for Clinical Trial information. If you happen to...

Published Thu, Oct 30 2008 1:20 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Other Items of Interest, My Commentaries

Doctors' Offices Work to Keep Patients During Economic Downturn amidst the continuing Red Tape and administrative overload

Every blogger, myself included has written about the upcoming shortage of physicians, well this is predicated on better healthcare, but as we are seeing from the downturn in the economy, people are not going to the doctor to take care of their health...

Published Thu, Oct 30 2008 12:25 PM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Insurance, Other Items of Interest, My Commentaries, healthcare, Physicians, Primary Care, Patients, Risk Management, information overlaod

The Doctor's Office – Deluged with Red Tape and Paperwork

From the IT side of things, I can’t agree more with all the additional administrative functions that appear in today’s medical practice, as a few years ago when I was writing code and creating a medical records program, much of what I was doing was looking...

Published Thu, Oct 30 2008 11:53 AM by The Medical Quack

Filed under: Medically Related, Technology, Insurance, My Commentaries, Physician, healthcare, EHR, Health IT, PHR, Personal Health Records, software, Internet, insurers, administration, Red tape, information overlaod, IT partner