Medtronic, Infuse and the Senate Finance Committee
Spinal fusions jumped 1,500% among Medicare patients between 2002 and 2007. The explosion had nothing to do with changes in prevalence of the conditions for which the complex surgery is…
Sepsis: A Challenge for Patients and Hospitals
I thought I'd carry through on Infection Control again this week and share some new data I recently came across on Septicemia, commonly known in the hospital as, Sepsis. This…
Fed Gov’t Approves Covert Study of Access to Primary Care
The federal government is planning what has been termed as a “stealth survey” of predominantly primary care delivery systems in order to determine access-to-care data. The Obama administration is hoping…
SCOTUS Rules on a Couple of Important Pharma Cases
Clarence Thomas wrote for the 5-4 decision in which companies were shielded from lawsuits by consumers suffering from adverse effects of certain drugs. Anthony Kennedy, the SCOTUS justice often seen…
Do Overworked Medical Interns Cause Medical Errors? Let’s Sleep on It.
As of this writing, 5 air traffic controllers have been found asleep at the switch. By the time this piece is posted, several others may have joined the slumber party.…
Bacteria and Mobile Devices
I really see us moving beyond COWs (computers-on-wheels) and an explosion in use of mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc) in healthcare environments. But, I would be remiss if the Environment of…
Healthcare Data Security: How Bad is it?
It is really bad, according to a recent survey by the Ponemon Institute (available here with registratio It is really bad, according to a recent survey by the Ponemon Institute (available here with registration).…
Social Media – Shoulder Surgery Decision Making
Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video.Thanks to an orthopedic colleague, Dr. Katherine Burns, the Orthopedic community and any other interested parties on…
The Massachusetts Experiment Analyzed: Are We Ready for Global Payments?
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley released her office's second annual report, An Examination of Health Care Cost Trends and Drivers (PDF; see also press release), which contains a wealth of…
Google Health is Dead – What Did We Learn About PHRs?
As I mentioned by way of the Wall Street Journal back at the end of March, Google Health was supposed to get less support under the new CEO. We learned…
