Tag: Medical Care

Researchers at the University of Adelaide have discovered that a commonly used technique called hypotensive anesthesia that reduces the blood pressure of patients undergoing surgery could increase the risk of starving the brain of oxygen.

Here's another addition to our Third Age Video Collection. Press play to start learning.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should require that clinical data be submitted as part of a more rigorous re-evaluation of medical devices that are modified after approval, according to University of San Francisco physicians in a commentary published online March 24^th 2014 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Limiting the number of working hours for surgical residents hasn’t improved patient outcomes and may actually have increased patient complications. Additionally, shorter hours seem to lead to higher failure rates on certification exams.

The finding, by researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, was published in the journal Annals of Surgery.

Changing how medication alerts are presented in electronic medical records resulted in safer prescribing, increased efficiency, and reduced workload for health care providers who placed drug orders, according to study published online in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

A release from Indiana Universoty quotes study leader said Alissa L. Russ, Ph.D as saying, "We are looking at ways to improve the alert system for providers and for patient care."  

A breakthrough study done at the University of Leicester in the UK has shown that low dose injections of artificial properdin provide substantial protection against septic diseases in mice. The paper was published on March 24^th 2014 in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A device using technology similar to that found in video games may eventually help health care practitioners monitor and even prevent falls among hospital patients.

Between 700,000 and 1 million people each year fall in U.S. hospitals, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. All patients are at higher risk of falls because they are sick or injured. Falls are especially serious for older patients.

From the Mayo Clinic

The news that you will need surgery can prompt many questions and a lot of anxiety. Beyond details about your medical condition and treatment options, what should you ask your surgeon before the operation? Whatever you need to ask to be comfortable with the decisions you make about your care, says Robert Cima, M.D., a colon and rectal surgeon and chair of Mayo’s surgical quality subcommittee.

The cost of brain scans for headache patients has reached $1 billion annually, a study has found. But many of the scans are unnecessary.

Research from the University of Michigan Medical School found that 12 percent of doctor visits in the U.S. for headache resulted in a brain scan.

Several national guidelines for physician advise against scanning the brains of patients who complain of headache and migraine. Still, the rate of brain scans is rising, not falling, since the guidelines were issued.

Using genome sequencing, National Institutes of Health scientists and their colleagues have tracked the evolution of the antibiotic-resistant bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae sequence type 258 (ST258), an important agent of hospital-acquired infections. While researchers had previously thought that ST258 K. pneumoniae strains spread from a single ancestor, the NIH team showed that the strains arose from at least two different lineages.

Older patients with chronic illnesses often have care that is poorly coordinated. They may see many different health care providers working in multiple clinical locations, and poor communication between provider and patient is common. These factors can lead to higher use of health services and poorer outcomes. Improving the coordination of care for elderly patients with chronic diseases trims costs, reduces use of health services, and cuts complications. Those are the finding of a study done by the RAND Corporation and published online in March 2014 by JAMA Internal Medicine.

When it comes to choosing which medications to prescribe, patients may have as much influence as physicians, a study has found.

Researchers said that that patient requests for specific medications—often spurred by direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising—have a substantial impact on doctors' prescribing decisions.

"A patient request for a specific medication dramatically increases the rate at which physician s prescribe that medication," said lead researcher John B. McKinlay, PhD, of New England Research Institutes, Watertown, Mass.

About 20 percent of older Americans with chronic conditions are taking medicines that work against each other, according to a new study. In other words, the medication being used to treat one condition can make another condition worse.

The problem affects millions of Americans, since three out of four older adults have multiple chronic conditions.

Cases of skin infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have increased greatly since the early 2000s. Skin abscesses such pus-filled boils or pimples with discharge characterize these infections, according to a March 12^th 2014 release from the University of California, Los Angeles written by Rachel Champeau. She reports the more virulent form of the infection can result in potentially lethal conditions including necrotizing pneumonia, fasciitis, and sepsis.

The Magnet Recognition Program operated by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, which recognizes healthcare organizations that provide excellence in nursing.

A large team of experts led by a Johns Hopkins geriatrician reports that efforts to improve the care of older adults and others with complex medical needs will fall short unless public policymakers focus not only on preventing hospital readmission rates, but also on better coordination of community-based "care transitions." Lessons learned from managing such transitions for older patients, they say, may offer a framework for overall improvement.

A survey of primary care physicians suggests they often face uncertainty in ordering and interpreting clinical laboratory tests, and would welcome better electronic clinical decision support tools.

The results of the survey, done at the University of Illinois in Chicago and sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were published in the March-April 2014 issue of The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

“Choosing Wisely”, and initiative of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation, has released a 2014 update from the American Geriatrics Society listing 10 procedures and tests that should not be routinely performed or prescribed for older patients: