The Ones that Emory Didn’t Save

It was with much fan-fare that 2 American aid workers were airlifted from across the world and brought to Emory University Medical Center where they began experimental treatment for Ebola. We hope for a full and speedy recovery for them and others like them who do God’s work.

But it appears to me that lost in this conversation are myriad others who need help but never get it. Right now, humanitarian work is being done all over the world, and in very dangerous places. These people  knowingly put their life on the line for others. Yet  tragically, some of them are injured or sickened in the service of others. But for them, the call from the CDC offering to med-evac them out never came. There was a girl, who died of malaria while in Kenya. Or the young man who was serving in Egypt. Or a myriad other aid workers who die while serving their fellow human beings.

Also at issue, and it needs to be asked, at what cost are we saving lives? Who decides who gets what may have been, all told, a hundred thousand dollar medical evacuation? Susan Grant, the Chief Nurse for Emory Healthcare, in an article for The Washington Post rightly downplayed the infection risk posed by bringing these patients here. She went on to say:

“The purpose of any hospital is to care for the ill and advance knowledge about human health. . . As human beings, we all hope that if we were in need of superior health care, our country and its top doctors would help us get better”

This statement brings to mind others that need saving. They don’t work in far away lands, they live here in the U.S, right across town, in fact. They don’t have fancy, exotic diseases.  Their conditions have names like diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and lung cancer. Right now many of them are getting collection notices for their inability to pay from medical centers like Emory University. Others have been trying to get appointments at tertiary centers  like Emory. Only they’re told that their insurance is not accepted there, or their co-pays and deductibles will be more than they can afford.

How would Ms. Grant justify the incredible expense spent on this endeavor to those people? What would she say about the necessity of this experiment, a clinical trial with an N = 2? Could she really  tell those sweating in the Atlanta heat after their electricity got shut off that this was all really for their benefit?

I don’t know how to solve the ethical dilemma here. While I am hope for a cure on the one hand, I cringe at the highlight this places on those at the bottom end of America’s healthcare disparity gap. Perhaps someday in the distant future they can take solace in knowing that they didn’t suffer for naught. Because if they ever contract ebola, there will be a cure waiting for them.

3 Ways Obamacare is Destroying American Healthcare.

As I was watching CNN news recently, I noted in the headlines different ways Obamacare is failing.  Current problems discussed were the customers’ sticker shock of high deductible plans (up to $12,700 for families), the president blaming the insurance companies for having substandard plans, and the people blaming the president for losing their current insurance.

One patient even complained, “My new health care plan tripled in price, and now, it is like having a third loan to deal with, including my car and home loan.”

The current law and regulations being implemented under Obamacare will ultimately lead to sicker patients and low quality care for three reasons:

1.  Older doctors will retire early fed up with the system. These older doctors feel that the loss of a patient-physician relationship and the burdensome regulations (ie. paperwork) will choke off their ability to provide good care.  In addition, their expenses are increasing with these new regulations.  Add in the projected cuts in reimbursement up to 26%, and their livelihood will be threatened. These cuts could force these doctors out of practice or force them to stop seeing Medicare patients simply because their expenses (which rise yearly) are exceeding their declining reimbursement, which has declined steadily over the past several years already. Continue reading “3 Ways Obamacare is Destroying American Healthcare.”

It’s Time to Move On From ACLS Certification.

I can recall, though it seems quite long ago, my first Basic Life Support (BLS) course as a first year medical student. The instructor dutifully demonstrated on a mannequin to eager young medical students what to do if someone is found unresponsive. Shaking the unmoving mannequin she said loudly,  “Sir, are you ok?” Then hearing no response she showed us how to check for a pulse and spontaneous breathing. “if not present” she said, “call for help and start CPR”. Me, ever the smart-ass, took my own approach. “Sir,  are you ok?” Then, grabbing the mannequin tightly to my chest “NOOOO! why? WHY?!”

This didn’t enamor me to the instructor very much and earned me most of the difficult clinical scenarios of the day.

Classes like these are now mandatory for those working in hospitals. Just about all employees have to go through BLS training, and many employees in more advanced clinical settings are also required to take Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS). ACLS  is an advanced skill set taught to medical personnel who work in areas of the healthcare field who may have encounters with patients that require interventions beyond the scope of BLS.

Those of us in the medical field who are required to recertify ACLS have long dreaded the process of ACLS recertification. Part of that is because it can be an intense course that makes many feel nervous. Part of it is also because it is expensive and time consuming. But the greatest reason why most who undergo ACLS training  object  to it is for a different reason entirely: they feel that is simply unnecessary. Continue reading “It’s Time to Move On From ACLS Certification.”

To Reform Healthcare, America Needs to Look to its Doctors.

Our healthcare system is sick and dysfunctional. A vicious cycle of blame is happening between Washington, health insurance companies, and the patients. And it is quickly demoralizing this nation and simply increasing costs with more administrative regulations. It is raising questions regarding the future of healthcare in the United States.

And we need answers.

Surprisingly, in all of this, doctors are rarely mentioned.  As if doctors do not know the intricacies of how the health care system works.  As if doctors are not there for their patients 24 hours per day, ordering tests or doing procedures that can benefit a patient’s well-being.  As if doctors are not dealing with denials from the insurance companies on a daily basis, losing valuable hours to menial paperwork that could be spent caring for our country’s sick.

Doctors have a duty to care for their patients and are the engines that put health care into motion. They yearn to maintain that physician-patient relationship that is important to the care of our patients.

Unfortunately, doctors are not being directly involved in the health care reform debate despite being on the front lines of care.  They have an opportunity to provide valuable insight into the day-to-day operations of this health care machine. Continue reading “To Reform Healthcare, America Needs to Look to its Doctors.”

“Doctor, can I record this conversation?”

It’s happened to me a couple of times already. But the question in the title of this post was never asked. Rather I was informed later on that my conversation with a patient or family was recorded without my knowledge. Smart phones have made it all too easy for patients to secretly record conversations with their healthcare providers. Simply hit a button,  lay it innocently down by your side in the office or hospital, and patients get an instant video or audio capture of a conversation with their physician.  When my medical team and fellow physicians found out about the unauthorized recording of our conversation, the news was met with a combination and anger and disgust.

That reaction, it seems,  is typical of what most physicians would feel in the same situation. Why would a physician be upset about a patient secretly recording a conversation with them?

Well, simple, really. Most physicians are in chronic fear that the next person to hear/view that recording will be a malpractice lawyer, dissecting it,  consonant by consonant,  probing for potentially actionable material. The recording, in the physicians mind, changes the nature of the physician-patient relationship. It makes the patient a potential adversary, it makes the doctor feel as if they are in front of a jury and can not speak frankly, it makes them feel as if they are unworthy of trust. In other words, physicians do not like being recorded because they assume that the person recording them has negative motivations.

But let’s pause for a moment and look at this a different way. . . what if they don’t have negative motivations? Continue reading ““Doctor, can I record this conversation?””

How to Fix Healthcare, From a Doctor on the Frontlines: Part 3.

This is the last of a 3 part series by Dr. Moeller, the infamous Doctor on the Frontlines. In this series he explores ways in which our healthcare system is failing, and how it can be improved from the perspective of those who live and breathe healthcare every day. . . doctors. Click the links to read Part 1 and Part 2.

I want every person in America to have access to quality health care all at a reasonable price because our citizens deserve this. Unfortunately, universal access to care at a reasonable price cannot materialize unless lawmakers look to doctors on the front lines of care for specific input.  We as doctors know in many ways why costs are high and why the public is unfortunately misinformed about how it all works.  But we need a representative sample of practicing doctors in Congress discussing these issues so that these “insider” insights can be applied to our current laws. In post, I look at the last of three central  ideas that would lead to better and more affordable care.

3. Health Savings Accounts.

The third solution highlights increasing patients’ roles in their own health, which would lead to more patient satisfaction, and actually lower costs.  This could be accomplished with health savings accounts.  These accounts would be funded by patients with pre-tax dollars and contributions made by employers and/or government subsidy stratified based on the individual’s income and job status.   With actual money in these accounts, patients would be able to discern costs better and use this money as if they were consuming any other good or service, such as handyman services.   This money could grow each year like an investment account and even be passed on to heirs at the time of death, keeping that sense of ownership with loved ones. Continue reading “How to Fix Healthcare, From a Doctor on the Frontlines: Part 3.”

A Dream About U.S. EMR’s; A Reality in th U.K.

I’m back at it again, talking about my continued love/hate relationship with EMR’s. From my conversations with doctors at different hospitals in our region, it seems that most docs appear to be falling into the “hate” column. Meanwhile, I’m still chugging along with the Allscripts Professional EHR that’s been installed in my office. And while it works just fine for the needs of a 3 physician single-specialty outpatient practice, it’s hardly the type of technology that, by itself, can change medical care for the better for a large number of people.

A recent study challenges that notion. In a study published in Chest, researchers in England sought to determine if inhaled steroids are a risk factor for pneumonia among asthmatics. It has already been shown inhaled corticosteroids are associated with an increased risk of pneumonia among patients with COPD. To determine this they looked at a database of medical information known as The Health Information Network (THIN).

In the UK, EMR’s have been in use for years, and general practitioners are encouraged (but not required) to participate in THIN. When a general practice elects to participate in THIN, software is installed in their EMR which runs in the background. The program collects data, while de-identifying it. The anonymized data is then uploaded to THIN, where approved researchers may have access to it.  There is no cost to the practices for participating, and in return for their participation practices not only receive in depth practice metrics, they also receive a percentage of any research revenue generated from the use of the THIN data. At the time that the study was conducted, the database contained data from 9.1 million patients.

But back to the question at hand. From a cohort of 359,172 people with asthma the researchers were able to identify 6857 people with pneumonia, along with 36,312 control subjects.  They were thus able to find a positive correlation between inhaled steroids and pneumonia. (for more on these findings, see my previous post: ) Continue reading “A Dream About U.S. EMR’s; A Reality in th U.K.”

Smartphone App Allows COPD Patients to Individualize Their Care.

Health-care technology advocates have long been preaching about the potential of smartphones and other types of disruptive technology to improve health-care delivery. We in organized medicine have been slow to answer the call. Studies that showcase the ability of these tools in major medical journals are rare.  However, in a recent issue of CHEST, we see a welcome addition to the medical literature.

In this study,  researchers taught patients with COPD to create daily symptom diaries on smartphones (BlackBerry 8700s).  The results were uploaded to a research server and the program alerted staff when certain predetermined criteria were met. Using the data, researchers were able to accurately and quickly identify patients who were having an exacerbation of their COPD. They were also able to collect data on both the timing and length of the exacerbation.

This has exciting implications. Perhaps this kind of patient centered  data could be used to identify patients with severe symptoms and prevent hospitalizations, or to serve as a measure of response in clinical trials to various interterventions. The possible applications are numerous.

Though there is one aspect of this study that, as a tech geek, leaves me ambivalent. Should I be excited that even an obsolete smartphone could prove to be so useful? Or depressed that even an obsolete smartphone is so far ahead of current medical technology?

How do you feel about patient-centered smartphone apps that allow patients to individualize their care?

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This article is also posted at the ACCP Thought Leaders Blog.

Flash Mob Medical Research

It was my second day of residency, and something was afoot. As I made my way around my first rotation on the cardiac floor, my medical senses were tingling. There was something strange happening to all of my patients, I saw. As I peaked over my cohort’s shoulders, I secretly saw that it was happening to their patients too, though they hadn’t seemed to  notice. Only I did, and I was going to report it to my senior. Together we were going to report it to the New England Journal of Medicine, and I was going to win the Nobel Prize of Awesome Doctor. Yes, I alone noticed that all of the patients on the floor were somehow inexplicably breathing at the exact same respiratory rate. Not only this, but they were breathing fast, at a rate of 20, clearly something must be causing all of them to do this. Surely this could not have been due to documentation error, since all the of the other vital signs seemed to vary, it was only the respiratory rates which seemed to stay the same among all the patients.

 That day was more than 10 years distant, I still don’t have my nobel prize, and New England Journal isn’t returning my calls. The answer to the question that I posed back then about a phenomenon I now see daily is only too easy to find. It sits in every hospital ward, at the end of the hallway. There a  bank of mobile machines that is wheeled around the ward to check vital signs sits recharging in wall outlets. As nurses and assistants scramble to administer medications, change bedsheets, turn patients, answer call lights, help patients around the halls, answer the phones, answer family questions, speak with clinicians, and pass food trays, they wheel these devices to their patients’ bedside. They quickly first attach a blood pressure cuff and press the cycle button. As the cuff inflates, they attach a finger sat monitor from the same machine  which takes a few seconds to get a reading. As this is taking a reading, they ask the patient to open their mouth and insert a temperature probe to get a temperature. Around this time, the BP cuff says “error”, so they cycle it once more. While this cycles, they now have a reading for temperature, and the finger monitor gives them readings for oxygen saturation and heart rate.

They have a few paper towels left over from feeding the patient in the next bed, so they start jotting down numbers in it, and just as they finish this, they get a reading from the BP cuff, which they write down as well. They would like to put this in the computer right away, but in the hallway call light buzzers are sounding, somebody wants to get up. Another person wants their pain medications, the radiology suite wants the patient in the next bed sent for their ultrasound immediately.  But wait aren’t they supposed to be fasting for that test? And there’s 4 more patients who need to have their vital signs checked.

So several moments later, as the nurse finally sits down to enter all the vital signs into the chart, values will be entered for heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, oxygen saturation. But since no respiratory rate was checked, the default number of 18 or 20 is often entered. Why is the respiratory rate not checked?

Because the Mr. Vital Signs machine does not check respiratory rate. Continue reading “Flash Mob Medical Research”

Why Medical Education Should Embrace Social Media

Social Media and Medical Education: Access Denied.

-By Rebecca Hastings, D.O.

I have never been very computer or tech savvy.  I’m not up-to-date on the latest technology, but I do have a smart phone and a laptop which I use for their very basic purposes; and I do admit I have a Facebook account, mostly for keeping in touch with friends and family and, you know, the daily grind.  Up until recently, I had no idea how to “Tweet” or what Twitter was really all about.  A physician mentor of mine suggested that I start a Twitter account and take advantage of the vast amount of knowledge floating around in Twitter world.  I was hesitant at first since my free time is limited and I didn’t really need any additional distractions from my fellowship.  Plus, I definitely didn’t need to join another social media network to share pictures and read about everyone’s daily happenings.  But, I trust my mentor and appreciate his guidance, so I signed up.  And WOW!  Information overload at my fingertips!!  Within a few minutes, I became a “follower” of JAMA, Chest, Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, New England Journal of Medicine, the Annals of Internal Medicine and numerous other large medical journals and institutions.  Granted, I may have also become a “follower” of a couple fitness magazines and my beloved Kansas Jayhawks, but the majority of my Twitter thread consists of these professional organizations.  I had immediate access to hundreds of tweets from these prestigious institutions across the world.  These world-renowned entities were “tweeting” about medical information, both past and present.  They were sharing everything from major review articles to personal reflections and comic strips.  Not only were the major institutions sharing these, but other physicians were sharing their professional opinions and other articles that they found important and interesting.  By signing up for Twitter, I had opened my eyes to a whole new world of medical education.

At first, I mostly just browsed articles and topics that were posted.  But the more I read, the more I wanted to share.  I felt like others were helping me, so why not share the knowledge.   One afternoon, I sat down in the fellow call room on a break.  I had been browsing my Twitter feed on my phone and there were a couple of interesting articles and commentaries I wanted to read.  But low and behold, when signing in, a big red box comes across the screen stating “Access Denied.”  Ok, so I know Twitter is technically considered social media, but why can’t social media be used as an educational tool?  Large renowned institutions and organizations are tweeting valuable information pertaining to my livelihood and I can’t access it “on the job” where I’m supposed to be gaining an education. Continue reading “Why Medical Education Should Embrace Social Media”