tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82419677545153639312013-04-08T08:33:31.189-07:00A fly on the wall of medicine, exploring public health and family healthLaurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.comBlogger128125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-43571765955189544982012-08-27T10:55:00.000-07:002012-08-27T10:55:55.817-07:002012-08-27T10:55:55.817-07:00

The CDC is issuing a fresh warning this month about hepatitis C in Baby Boomers (those born between 1945 and 1965) as infection rates rise in this population. According to Medline Plus, the hepatitis C virus has infected 1 out of every 30 Baby Boomers ("Test All Baby Boomers for Hepatitis C: CDC").  Hepatitis C is spread through contact with infected blood or, more rarely, through sexual

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-87027690516059973112012-07-30T15:17:00.000-07:002012-07-30T15:17:42.086-07:002012-07-30T15:17:42.086-07:00

I've never been too interested in the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, because I want to get to the athletics, which always impress me. But I watched the ceremony from London this year out of curiosity, and I was pleasantly surprised.  One part of Danny Boyle's loud and quirky vision of England in the opening ceremony especially struck me: his depiction of the U.K.'s National Health Service

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-34242317630201225982012-06-30T14:31:00.000-07:002012-07-03T14:33:29.602-07:002012-07-03T14:33:29.602-07:00

I've been thinking about magnet injuries ever since I read a story about summer injuries in kids by a Washington Post columnist. Buckyballs, the magnetic toy marketed to office workers, have caused numerous injuries to children who got their hands on them and swallowed the small, pea-sized magnets. The magnets can clamp together across internal tissues, causing intestinal blockages. These

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-35663709361648524532012-05-25T14:27:00.000-07:002012-05-25T14:27:35.993-07:002012-05-25T14:27:35.993-07:00

Since we live in an old house, I've hired a lot of contractors in my time. The first step, of course, is getting an estimate for the work; the second step (after I recover from sticker shock) is discussing what to add or drop from the estimate to meet my needs and my budget. I would never hire a contractor and say "just bill me when it's done." I need to know how much it will cost me, and the

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-69432133062975705312012-04-20T12:03:00.002-07:002012-04-20T12:04:01.733-07:002012-04-20T12:04:01.733-07:00

Today, I discuss who is responsible for keeping health apps from harming you, in Part II of my Q&A with Paul Nerger, Senior Technology Advisor for the mobile health application management company Happtique. (Part I explained who uses and develops health apps). How are health apps regulated to ensure that they are safe and accurate (both stand-alone apps and those that connect to a medical

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-9029462165080868682012-04-13T12:12:00.000-07:002012-04-13T12:16:27.765-07:002012-04-13T12:16:27.765-07:00

If you have a smartphone or a tablet computer, your AngryBirds app might have some new company soon: apps prescribed by your doctor to help you manage your health. Last month, I heard Paul Nerger, the Senior Technology Advisor for the mobile application management company Happtique, talk about the brave new world of health apps at a mobile health panel (hosted in part by the German American

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-55277220265331314252012-04-02T13:43:00.001-07:002012-04-02T13:43:13.994-07:002012-04-02T13:43:13.994-07:00

I am slightly obsessed with the topic of radiation exposure, since I have covered radiation overdoses from CT scans on this blog and written about radiation issues in post-earthquake Japan and treating radiation injuries for Medscape. So I was interested to learn about efforts to decrease radiation exposure in patients when I stopped by the Society of Interventional Radiology's annual meeting in

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-507874591110780762012-03-26T15:52:00.000-07:002012-03-26T15:52:51.950-07:002012-03-26T15:52:51.950-07:00

The Washington Post had an interesting article yesterday about the use of female crash test dummies to test car safety in 2011 cars. These dummies, which are lighter and smaller than the male dummies used in the past, provide very different safety data than the male dummies. Some cars tested with the female dummies now have lower safety ratings than they had with male dummies ("Female dummy makes

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-23894381791106385512012-03-15T10:38:00.000-07:002012-03-15T10:38:20.645-07:002012-03-15T10:38:20.645-07:00

Smartphones and cell phones are increasingly playing a role in public health. Combine a smartphone with crowdsourcing and infectious diseases, for example, and you end up with a novel concept called participatory epidemiology. The Outbreaks Near Me app for iPhone and Android, for example, released during the swine flu epidemic in 2009, collects data from users and from the media to track the flu

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-40903194925301635852012-03-02T13:32:00.001-08:002012-03-02T13:34:15.839-08:002012-03-02T13:34:15.839-08:00

In medicine, aggregated personal health data, including genetic information, is extremely valuable, even lifesaving. Researchers can analyze data from electronic medical records to find patterns of diseases, see how well treatments work across broad populations, and to pinpoint risk factors for a variety of ills (identifying details for each patient, such as name and address, are blocked to

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-10244133892253713382012-02-24T11:33:00.000-08:002012-02-24T11:33:50.810-08:002012-02-24T11:33:50.810-08:00

I attended a health technology forum recently in Silicon Valley, and, not surprisingly, the issue of health care for Baby Boomers came up. A number of promising new technologies and services are being developed to keep Boomers healthier and help them avoid expensive hospital stays as they age. The people who are watching Boomer health most carefully, however, are not those creating and funding

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-5849858908191614482012-02-10T13:28:00.000-08:002012-02-10T13:28:26.341-08:002012-02-10T13:28:26.341-08:00

With the Academy Awards approaching, I'm wrapping up my yearly quest to see as many of the movies nominated for Best Picture as possible before the show. Working my way through the list of nominated movies, I enjoyed the clever film The Artist, even though I was initially loathe to watch a French silent film about actors set during the Depression. But this year's Oscar nominations have been

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-84600458242569586102011-11-30T14:09:00.000-08:002011-11-30T14:09:55.650-08:002011-11-30T14:09:55.650-08:00

Whether you love or loathe pharmaceutical companies, it's clear that we have a problem with pharmaceutical delivery in the U.S. First of all, some drugs are inexplicably expensive. There's the $93,000 prostrate cancer drug Provenge, for example,  which I've blogged about in the past ("The Skewed Values of Drug Prices"). A more recent example is Anascorp, an orphan drug (used to treat rare

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-71877736810707235722011-10-31T23:10:00.000-07:002011-10-31T23:10:05.713-07:002011-10-31T23:10:05.713-07:00

Two vaccines targeted to children have been in the news this month: a vaccine in clinical trials in parts of Africa that offers some protection from malaria (which is a leading cause of death in African children, according to the World Health Organization), and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which prevents infection with certain cancer-causing strains of the HPV virus. Although the HPV

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-67432023439361082242011-10-17T15:09:00.000-07:002011-10-17T15:09:06.114-07:002011-10-17T15:09:06.114-07:00

In print and screen advertisements, retirement is often portrayed as a time to start a second career, spend more time with the grandchildren, volunteer for a worthy cause, or travel around the world. Any health problems can be managed with prescription medications and moderate exercise. Realistically, however, many Americans will ultimately need long-term care in a nursing home or in their own

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-1411616729384798492011-09-30T11:21:00.000-07:002011-09-30T11:26:49.507-07:002011-09-30T11:26:49.507-07:00

I thought it was a truck going by, but that's what I always think when the little earthquakes strike. It took me a moment to realize what it might be. It was near the end of the work day for me, but my laptop was still on, so I logged on to the U.S. Geological Survey site to find out that it was a magnitude 3.3 earthquake near Oakland, CA yesterday. I was far enough away that I barely felt it. I

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-31269998386931357102011-09-26T17:00:00.000-07:002011-09-26T17:03:10.256-07:002011-09-26T17:03:10.256-07:00

Texas' Baylor Health Care joined the Cleveland Clinic and other hospitals in banning smokers from hospital jobs, Fierce Healthcare reported today. As Alice Wolke of My FOX Houston explained in an article about Baylor Health Care's decision, "on the company's Careers page, the rules are laid out: Applicants who admit to nicotine use will not have their applications processed Anyone who is hired

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-30274692804569775332011-09-09T16:43:00.000-07:002011-09-09T16:43:51.469-07:002011-09-09T16:43:51.469-07:00

A study published recently in Pediatrics cited the "statistical uncertainty" of using mortality rates in children's hospitals to rank their quality. The study of approximately 473,000 U.S. patients discharged from children's hospitals in 2008 found that adjusted mortality rates at the 42 hospitals studied did not vary much by the hospital's ranking ("Statistical Uncertainty of Mortality Rates and

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-32936379872290859742011-08-29T12:50:00.000-07:002011-08-29T12:50:43.007-07:002011-08-29T12:50:43.007-07:00

With cancer rates soaring - an estimated 1.5 million Americans were diagnosed with cancer in 2010, according to the National Cancer Institute - there's an increasing need for better cancer treatments. But fewer than 1% of cancer patients join clinical trials. In an article just published in the Annals of Surgery, Waddah B. Al-Refaie, MD and colleagues found that just 0.64% of patients with solid

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-83138976368498067682011-08-19T17:18:00.000-07:002011-08-19T17:19:10.932-07:002011-08-19T17:19:10.932-07:00

Recently, several doctors that my family uses told me that they are leaving the hospital where they practice to become independent. I was surprised to hear this, because I had read that the the opposite is true: doctors are leaving private practice for the safety of a steady hospital salary. Our doctors' frustrations, however, were legion. They disagreed with the hospital's billing practices,

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-601480829660337252011-08-14T21:37:00.000-07:002011-08-14T21:37:44.138-07:002011-08-14T21:37:44.138-07:00

Florida recently passed a law making it illegal for doctors to ask patients whether there is a gun in their house during a routine health care visit. The law, CS/CS/ HB155, which became effective in early June, makes some exceptions for EMTs and paramedics, who frequently treat people injured by gun violence. But the law's wording makes it clear that Florida firearm owners are primarily

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-76440591040963967222011-08-07T22:21:00.000-07:002011-08-07T22:22:08.516-07:002011-08-07T22:22:08.516-07:00

With a shortage of health care providers looming, the U.S. is trying to tap foreign-trained professionals to fill the gap. There are two tactics to achieve this, as several recent articles in Fierce Healthcare point out: giving temporary visas to nurses currently living and working abroad, and creating on-ramps for foreign-trained health care professionals living in the U.S. to practice medicine

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-14928180921005209012011-07-30T22:35:00.000-07:002011-07-30T22:35:58.094-07:002011-07-30T22:35:58.094-07:00

Later this year, a small clinical trial will begin in Europe to test the use of stem cells to manage or possibly reverse the progress of multiple sclerosis, a disease in which a patient's immune system attacks the myelin sheath that protects nerve cells from damage. The disease tends to first strike when a patient is in their 20s and 30s, and it causes a range of symptoms (which vary widely by

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-77961267348350382722011-07-24T20:46:00.000-07:002011-07-24T20:46:50.606-07:002011-07-24T20:46:50.606-07:00

The business of health care is not always good for your health, at least if you look at the ongoing problems at Johnson & Johnson (J&J). I've written before about problems with the company's McNeil division, which manufactures many household medicines such as children's Tylenol. Over the past two years, some products manufactured at McNeil have been recalled due to musty odors, inadequate active

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8241967754515363931.post-39687981730500733992011-07-13T15:40:00.000-07:002011-07-13T15:40:59.809-07:002011-07-13T15:40:59.809-07:00

A recent study found that about half of U.S. health care expenses are incurred by just five percent of U.S. patients. These 2009 figures were just released in a data brief by the nonprofit National Institute for Health Care Management Research Foundation. The data brief found that the U.S. spent an average of $8,086 per person on health care in 2009, almost twice the $4,166 per-capita cost in

Laurie Bouckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10423495739817698993noreply@blogger.com0