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The cost of emergency care: Emergency care cost estimates are too low

By Guest PostJune 1, 2013Healthabc, alpert medical school, brian zink, bundled payments, cost, data, ed, emergency care, emergency medicine, jeremiah schuur, marginal cost, michael lee, michael porter, model, rhode island hospital, robert kaplan, the miriam hospital, total spending, us emergency care

U.S. emergency care costs may be more than twice previously published estimates, according to a new analysis that critiques those estimates, argues for improved accounting, and suggests considering the value of emergency care as well as total spending.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Alternately praised in the aftermath of horrible tragedies as a heroic service and lamented in policy debates as an expensive safety net for people without primary care, emergency medicine is often a hot topic. Despite that importance, an analysis published online April 26 in the Annals of Emergency Medicine finds that national expenditures on emergency care are likely significantly higher than previously thought.

“The ER has become increasingly important as a place where people go for acute unscheduled care, however there has been little rigorous analysis of its cost structure,” said paper lead author Dr. Michael Lee, assistant professor of emergency medicine in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a physician at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital. (more…)

Grassroots women’s groups could halve maternal death rate

By Guest PostMay 29, 2013General, Healthadult learning techniques, anthony costello, audrey prost, Bangladesh, child death rates, cost effective, grassroots womens groups, India, local women, malawi, maternal death rate, money, nepal, newborn deaths, participatory games, pregnancy, problem in pregnancy, related health problems, role play, story telling, sustainable, the lancet, ucl

Women’s groups can dramatically reduce the number of maternal and newborn deaths in some of the world’s poorest communities, according to a new meta-analysis published in The Lancet.

The research incorporated seven trials in Bangladesh, India, Malawi and Nepal and looked at 119,428 births.

It assessed whether groups facilitated by local women, who received a short training course of around 7 – 11 days, but were not health workers, affected rates of maternal and newborn mortality. The groups use a range of methods – including discussion, voting and role-playing – to identify common pregnancy-related health problems and work out locally appropriate ways to address them. (more…)

Journalist describes how food companies ‘hook’ consumers

By Guest PostMay 29, 2013Healthfood companies, food contamination, food giants, food optimization, junk food

In 2009, while investigating a sudden influx of illnesses caused by food contamination, journalist Michael Moss learned that there was another, and arguably more severe, public health crisis at hand: the disproportionate use of salt, sugar, and fat in a variety of everyday foods. (more…)

WALL-E, meet EVA: ‘Robo-doc’ navigates on its own, frees doctors to focus on the critically ill

By Guest PostMay 26, 2013Health, Technologybrain function, encrypted patient data, eva robot, intensive care unit, intouch health, ipad, irobotcorp, memory bank, neuro icu, neurological, paul vespa, remote presence robot, robot eva, ronald reagan, rp vita, technological features, the robot, ucla medical center

Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, the world’s first hospital to introduce a remote-presence robot into its neurological intensive-care unit in 2005, now welcomes the RP-VITA, the first robot able to navigate the hospital on its own.

UCLA staff affectionately dubbed the 5’5″, 176-pound robot “EVA,” for executive virtual attending physician. Unlike earlier models that physicians steered via a computer-linked joystick, this version drives on auto-pilot, freeing doctors to devote more time to patient care. (more…)

Recognizing America’s number one killer of women

By Guest PostMay 22, 2013Healthchronic disease, epidemiology, heart attack, judith lichtman, public health, risk, yale school, yale university, younger women

Judith Lichtman, associate professor of chronic disease epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, discusses the risk of heart attacks for younger women. *Source: Yale University

‘You’re awesome … just get out of your own way!’

By Guest PostMay 20, 2013General, Healthaddiction psychiatrist, awesome tedx, clinical research, judson brewer, mindfulness training, neuroscientist, techniques, yale university, you

In this TEDx talk, Dr. Judson Brewer, an addiction psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Yale University, outlines several common ways that we get in our own way, and details how his clinical research has found that techniques to help us get out of our own way, such as mindfulness training, can have large effects. *Source: Yale […]

Global health policy fails to address burden of disease on men

By Guest PostMay 20, 2013General, Healthaids, alcohol use, burden of disease, cerebrovascular disease, chris murray, davidson gwatkin, decline, economic situation, gender inequalities, gender norms, global health policy, global mortality rates, hiv, ischemic heart disease, kent buse, lancet, life expectancy, lower respiratory infections, men, policy makers, sarah hawkes, tobacco smoking, unaids, university of washington, unprotected sex, unsafe sex, women

Men experience a higher burden of disease and lower life expectancy than women, but policies focusing on the health needs of men are notably absent from the strategies of global health organisations, according to a Viewpoint article in this week’s Lancet.

The article reinterprets data from the ‘Global Burden of Disease: 2010’ study which shows that all of the top ten causes of premature death and disability, and the top ten behavioural risk factors driving rates of ill-health around the world, affect men more than they affect women. (more…)

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