Gleeman's Daily News-11/13

Medical Humor: "Five Things Not to Bring to the Emergency Room"

It pays to keep both your common sense and your sense of humor as you head to the ER.

A bit of levity suggested by my good friend Dr. Alberto Borges.

Survey: Patients want access to their on-line medication records

Objective: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the users' attitudes towards their access to "My dispensed medications" as part of a new interactive Internet service on prescribed medications.

Original paper, complete survey regarding patients and their desire for an on-line record of their medications, kept accurate "by some means".

Four PHR Vendors will be allowed to conduct CMS Demo

...the four winners (or might they be losers as they must shoulder all costs) who will have the opportunity to offer their PHR to CMS beneficiaries in Arizona and Utah.

Here is an opportunity for the four listed vendors to prove the value of PHR in at least two states.

Shift from silo'ed EHRs from a law blog standpoint

Tim Sturgill, MD JD at symtym provides an explanation and insight into the potential shift from silo'ed EHRs controlled by multiple providers to a Health Cloud centralized around a single PHR.

What are some of the legal issues of PHR and the so-called "health cloud"?

Overhaul of the coding for medical billing on the way

Government regulators are expected soon to overhaul the aging coding system that doctors and hospitals use to bill insurers -- a switch that many in health care say is necessary, but that could initially cause headaches for consumers and their doctors.

I expect to hear about this more in our Billings Forum, major change is on the way for the typical medical coding people.

For 30 million people in the U.K., iSoft launches LORENZO

LORENZO is highly scalable and proven and is being rolled out to manage over 30 million patient records as part of the world's largest civilian IT project-the EUR15.8 billion National Programme for IT for the UK's National Health Service.

This is very big, let's follow their progress, they are obviously way ahead of the U.S. in EMR deployment for the patients.

Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City connects HIT

During the last several years, more than 50 practices and clinics reminded the Salt Lake City system that national reference labs were putting the organization at a competitive disadvantage by providing interfaces that electronically deliver laboratory results directly into practice EMRs.

From the hospital on down to the doctors, the flow of EMR follows a typical path in this story. More examples all the time, progress moves.

Growing Pains: real but cause is not known

Growing pains are often described as an ache or throb in the legs - often in the front of the thighs, the calves or behind the knees.

Article suggests a serious approach, might be an actual disease, don't ignore the kids on this one.

Overweight children have the neck arteries of 45-year-olds

"As the old saying goes, you're as old as your arteries are," said Dr. Geetha Raghuveer of Children's Hospital in Kansas City, who led one of the studies. "This is a wake-up call."

More bad news for kids who are gaining too much weight, very lasting harm is being done.

Be careful mixing Plavix with drugs for heartburn, new study warns

Researchers found that patients who were taking Plavix with popular prescription heartburn drugs, including AstraZeneca PLC's (AZN, News) Nexium, were significantly more likely to be hospitalized for a heart attack, stroke, chest pain or a coronary artery bypass operation than those who took Plavix alone.

This could serve as an early warning to doctors and patients, I look for these every day.

Study of drug-resistant TB shows we are doing better

Unlike what is happening in much of the developing world, new U.S. cases of tuberculosis have declined sharply over the last 15 years.

This story is disturbing to me in that we have ANY of this form of TB in the good old U.S.A.

Britain calling for increase in sperm donors

The donor shortage may be due in part to a change in the law in 2005, which took away donors' anonymity. People conceived from donor sperm after the law took effect have the right, once they turn 18, to know the identity of their biological father.

So it turns out to be nothing more than a privacy issue.