Hospital safety ratings - Source Wink News

We trust hospitals to help make us well. What we don’t expect is to get sick in a hospital. But every year about 648,000 hospital patients develop infections during their stay and about 75,000 die. Some of the most threatening infections are caused by C. diff and MRSA bacteria, which can live on surfaces for days and pass from hand to hand. And MRSA is resistant to some antibiotics. Consumer Reports found that while some hospitals have been successful at cutting their infection rates, many have not.

Consumer Reports analyzed hospital-acquired infection data for thousands of hospitals across the U.S., and rated hospitals on how well they prevented MRSA and C. diff infections, and the results are sobering.

Only 6 percent received top scores for preventing both infections, with some well-known hospitals having low ratings, including the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. To prevent those infections, hospitals and hospital staff must pay close attention to cleanliness.

Also essential is to avoid the overuse and misuse of antibiotics, which can wipe out patients’ good bacteria and let bad bacteria like C. diff run wild.

Most infections are preventable, and if hospitals were committed to deploying evidence-based practices that reduce infections, tens of thousands of lives could be saved each year. Some hospitals are able to keep their infection rates low. The best prevent infections by designating special staff to oversee the use of antibiotics and by following clear protocols on cleanliness.

Read more at:  http://www.winknews.com/2015/07/29/hospital-safety-ratings/

Why patients don't follow doctors' orders — and what doctors could do about it. Source :Deseret news national

Medical students traded stethoscopes for skillets this spring in a course designed to make learning how to cook part of the path to becoming a doctor.

"Cooking skills are an incredible tool for any doctor in any specialty," said Dr. Geeta Maker-Clark, a clinical assistant professor and coordinator of integrative medical education at the University of Chicago who, together with Dr. Sonia Oyola, launched the culinary medicine program at the Pritzker School of Medicine. "They help you become a change agent for your patients."
Chicago's culinary medicine curriculum and similar programs at other schools are targeted, at least in part, at a rising obesity rate among U.S. adults, which increased from 25.5 percent in 2008 to 27.7 percent in 2014, according to Gallup. But this plan for doctors to use cooking skills to create a healthier population is challenged by one ever-present concern in the medical profession, health experts said: patients aren't that good at following doctor's orders.

Read more at http://national.deseretnews.com/article/5628/Why-patients-dont-follow-doctors-orders-2-and-what-doctors-could-do-about-it.html#CKymU3PydppSc0IE.99

Don't Fear the Future of Medicine - source medscpae.com

Dr Harrington: Hi. This is Bob Harrington from Stanford University. Over the course of the past year I have had the pleasure and the opportunity to interview several authors in the medical space, largely physicians who have something interesting to say about the contemporary state of medicine, healthcare, and research. Today we are going to try to wrap all of that into one discussion.
I have the pleasure today of interviewing my friend and colleague, Eric Topol. We are going to talk about Eric's new book, The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine Is in Your Hands.
What struck me, as I read this book, is the possibility of delivering not just a different type of healthcare but a better type of healthcare, largely facilitated through two strategies, one of which is smartphone technology, which we will talk about with Eric; the second is the use of analytic tools to turn the data, collected through a variety of mechanisms, into useful information...........

The source to the full interview
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Is there a difference between "street medicine" and "book medicine"? By EMS1.com

EMS stands for Emergency Medical System

Holding up the BVM, I launched into my instruction about good BVM technique.  “Nobody in medicine should be able to hold a candle to an EMT on proper BVM technique! Since we have fewer tools than anyone else, we should be the masters of these tools.”

And with that I began to demonstrate perfect BVM technique.
After watching my E-C hand technique, a student from the third row raised a confident hand. He was a volunteer for a local fire department and had seen the BVM used in the field a few times. He wanted to set the record straight on my insistence on good head position and a tight mask seal. I could see he was trying to reconcile the difference between the technique I was demonstrating and what he had witnessed in the field......................

Source to the full  story
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Acronyms :

BVM: Blood Volume Monitor  
EMT: Emergency Medical Technician

For a Therapist in Afghanistan, Empathy Is Good Medicine story in the New Work Times

KHAMZARGAR, Afghanistan — As one of only five female therapists in the northeastern Afghan province of Kapisa, Farkhunda Shahab struggles to soothe the anguished.

With her baby daughter perched on her lap, Ms. Shahab listened to the problems of women facing abusive husbands and economic hardship, or of young girls mourning a father long after his death.

With little formal training, women like Ms. Shahab have nonetheless become the front line in trying to improve mental health care in this part of Kapisa, a rural area marked by war, first between Afghan insurgents and Soviet occupiers, and later between the Taliban and the government they toppled.

Ms. Shahab cares for dozens of patients, many of whom must endure long journeys to see her. She does not dispense medication; instead, she listens to their complaints, asks questions, leads them in meditation exercises and offers advice on ways to change their habits in life to feel better...............

 Source The New Work Times

Link to full story

Modern Doctors’ House Calls: Skype Chat and Fast Diagnosis - The New York Times

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Modern Doctors’ House Calls: Skype Chat and Fast Diagnosis - The New York Times

3 Less-Popular Options for Learning About Medicine- source US News

Source: U.S.news online education
It's common for people interested in medicine to shadow a doctor before applying to medical school, but this kind of experience may not always impress an admissions team
It's considered to be one of the most passive forms of clinical experience, says Alicia McNease Nimonkar, a medical school admissions consultant for Accepted, which helps people get into college and graduate school "You're not actively involved," says Nimonkar.
While applicants may clean some things as a fly on the wall, they're limited in how much they can do to really learn about medicine, experts say.
Clinical care opportunities that require training and allow applicants to share responsibility for the well-being of a patient is more impressive, experts say. Admissions officers know that when premed students explore medicine by becoming scribes or emergency medical technicians, two less-popular paths, they're learning about the nitty-gritty side. ​


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