medicine

As I noted in my 2007 wrap-up, it seems clear that report cards and sites rating individual physicians are... Read more...

As we've reported previously, primary care physicians are struggling to make their finances work--and patients remain uncomfortable with the rapid pace they must maintain to keep afloat. So it's no... Read more...

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill designed to give the FDA more money and more authority to monitor and enforce drug safety rules. The bill, which is expected to pass the Senate... Read more...

Doctors are understandably reluctant to apologize for medical mistakes. On the one hand, there's the simple human fear of looking bad. Then add the fear of having your apology used against you in... Read more...

Right now, even the most skilled psychiatrist may play hit-or-miss for weeks or months before discovering which drugs works for a depressed patient. In the future, however, they may be able to cut right to the chase by doing a genetic test. Patients would get the drugs known to help people with their genetic profile. As in other areas of medicine, this could change not only the role of the physician, but the role of the pharmaceutical industry, too. Article

> St. Louis-area patients who want to sue doctors for alleged injuries now must go through mediation before they file a claim. Article

> UC Irvine has cracked down on CPR certification screening after it discovered that 22 employees, or about 1 percent of those required to have such certifications, had faked having them. …

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Doctors, like professional athletes, need a coach that helps them understand how to maximize their performance, says Dan DeLay, senior vice president of supply chain analytics at VHA Inc. To help doctors achieve great financial performance, hospital execs should let them know how their revenue, expenses and clinical outcomes compare with colleagues. After all, whether in sports or medicine, no one wants to let their team down, DeLay contends. Article

This is an interesting time to be a hospital executive--and a turning point in the business. New business models are popping up every six months, a fevered pace more akin to Silicon Valley than the staid halls of …

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Sometime in the early 1980s, the medical profession began drawing students more interested in high-tech advances than hands-on care, according to Arnold Gold, MD, a pediatric neurologist teaching at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. That didn't sit well with him, however. So for the past 20 years, Gold has been developing methods for teaching humanism in medicine, winning over most U.S. medical schools in the process. Article

In the Sacramento Bee, Dr. Michael Wilkes argues that EMRs won't prove to be as useful as many in the healthcare industry assume they'll be. The primary problem, he says, is that medicine won't benefit from computerization the same way other industries will. "In medicine, our fundamental activity is not stocking warehouse shelves or ordering merchandise from vendors. Medicine involves one human listening to, talking with and examining another."

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