Every couple of years I encounter the story of how a colleague gets accused of something in the media. Sometimes these articles have merit and sometimes these articles are and turn out to be blatantly incorrect. Regardless, they are always shocking and and damaging to the physician’s career. It is interesting that these situations are… Read More
A February 29, 2016 study in JAMA Pediatrics found that parents discovered a surprising number of physician errors in the care of their children. Although it was a small study involving 383 children who were hospitalized during 2013 and 2014, researchers concluded that approximately one in 10 parents caught a mistake their child’s physicians did… Read More
This April 11, 2015 article in Modern Healthcare discusses the lack of interoperability of health IT systems. This is probably one of the greatest challenges we have in healthcare. Interoperability of electronic health records remains a bridge too far for many providers, despite more than a decade of federal emphasis on information exchange and $29.1… Read More
This is a very good assessment of the Healthcare IT (HIT) systems by fellow Harbor-UCLA Emergency Medicine grad John Halamka. He hits the nail on the head on many of the problems. I think he is actually pretty generous with his grades as interoperability needs to change significantly so physicians are not mired down by… Read More
This is a good article in the February 29, 2016 issue of Modern Healthcare that talks about the risks of EHRs are accentuated in the emergency department setting. We need to advocated for interoperability so we are not stuck with the systems we have today. We also need to advocate for changes to make the… Read More
An article published in the January 31, 2016 looked at whether it was cost effective to provide comprehensive, multidisciplinary, team-based care for first-episode psychosis (FEP). This article supports the theory that early aggressive intervention in acute psychosis is cost effective and extremely beneficial to patients “This study provides rigorous evidence that the health benefits exceed the… Read More
Obesity is epidemic in the United States. It is a simple problem, American have larger portions, eat more processed food, and exercise less. Source: Obesity in America – PublicHealth.org… Read More
This study conducted by the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and published in the January 2016 Medicine Journal looked at emergency department utilization by obese patients (those with a high BMI) and concluded that this group are substantially higher utilizers of emergency department services compared to their peers particularly in younger adult age groups. This is… Read More
It is crazy the amount of money that attorneys are paid. Where as in medicine even the highest paid emergency physicians are paid only a fraction of that amount. How can people complain how much physicians earn when they look at attorneys, actors, and athletes. Raising rates ensures that law firms keep up with the competition… Read More
