MedPedia
MedPedia is a new website that will become the Wiki for medical information. It’s being put together right now, with contributors having no less than an MD or PHD. Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley are all involved and the project is getting support from the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, and the FDA, among other research groups. They plan to open the site late 2008.
The information will be presented in two ways, first the front page will have the information in a way that’s easy for the general public to understand, and then there will be a more technical page for medical professionals.
Even though there is already medical information on-line, they believe that because contributors will be specialists in their fields, and not just general doctors entering the information it will have an advantage.
I think this site is a great idea because it will have information on so many topics like diseases, drugs, and research results and it promises to go more in depth on these issues. The information will be overseen by a very qualified board of Directors.
More Heart Attack Education Needed
A recent study suggests that many people who have heart disease still don’t know the symptoms of a heart attack. Lives can be saved if someone who is having a heart attack can get help within the first hour of having the symptoms. However it was found that most people don’t seek help until more than two hours have passed, and that means lives are being lost.
A few of the symptoms are pain in the jaw, left arm, or chest and can also include nausea. Of course most of us reason that there also can be many other reasons for these symptoms so we don’t run right to the ER, especially if we are uninsured.
The key seems to be that we all need to be aware if we are at risk for a heart attack. If you know you are at risk than these symptoms could certainly be telling you what is happening.
Doctors say that shorter hospital stays and more outpatient treatments could be a factor in not being educated enough about heart attacks, and right now no one is sure about how to better inform people about their risk. What they do know is that this is costing many lives that could otherwise be saved with early and prompt treatment.
Talk to your doctor about your risks and the health of your heart, it may save your life one day.
Location and Medicare
A study that’s done every two years has concluded that Medicare is paying wildly different amounts depending on where in the United States you live. Some are four times as much as others.
They looked at ill seniors and disabled people and the care and length of hospital stays in their last two years of life. What they found was that doctors seemed to tailor the care they gave with the resources they had available. For example, if a city typically had few beds open, hospital stays where short and many would be treated as outpatients or in the doctors offices. Cities that had many beds open would have sick people staying a lot longer in that hospital.
This might seem logical and maybe not even worth a study. After all, if you don’t have beds for patients they can’t stay in the hospital. That seems to make sense. My question is why are people not staying in the hospitals for the amount of time they need to and no more? Why are people who are in need of hospital care being sent home, while those who could be treated at home are in the hospital?
I’m also wondering if these stats will be ever changing. What I mean is if you have an area where beds are tied up with lengthy stays won’t doctors start shortening those stays to free up beds? In time won’t there be many open beds because of shorter stays, which will in turn encourage doctors to keep patients longer and repeat the cycle?
Sounds like a game I don’t want to play.
Women and New Knees
Research shows that women wait a lot longer before they opt for knee replacement surgery than men.
The main reason is that doctors usually explain to patients that the new artificial knees will probably also need replacing in the future because even the titanium knees will wear out. Women will eventually die without having to have those second replacements, whereas men will live to have another surgery.
For that reason doctors tell people to wait to have the surgery until they can’t get around or stand the pain anymore. Men tend to elect for the surgery when they can no longer get around outside the home. Women wait until they can no longer get around inside the home.
Another way to interpret this data is that women simply can tolerate more pain and immobility than men. That is just my theory, what do you think?