INFOGRAPHIC: Electronic Health Records History | Patients & Families | HealthIT.gov

INFOGRAPHIC: Electronic Health Records History | Patients & Families | HealthIT.gov

What Patients need to know about EHR and HIT

Putting the I in Health IT

This video provides inspiring patient testimonials and informational interviews with representatives from the government on how health IT makes a difference in consumers' lives.


Ensuring the Security of Electronic Health Records Video:



It is vital to do as much as possible to protect sensitive health information in EHRs. Find out more about how providers are keeping individual health information safe and secure through cybersecurity.

Health IT Stories:

The best way to understand the value of health IT can be through personal testimonials from consumers and patients who have personal experiences using it to improve their health and health care. These videos are a small excerpt which represent many personal stories of consumers using e-Health and health IT tools to manage their care.

“I’ve Seen the Disaster Averted”  

Dottie Bringle, R.N., is a hospital executive in Joplin, MO. Three weeks before Joplin's devastating tornado in May 2011, her hospital completed a switch to an EHR – so even though her hospital building was destroyed, doctors and nurses were able to provide care to Joplin residents in their time of need.

“I Want My Kids to Have the Best Care”

Lilianne Wright, upon hiking in the Grand Canyon, suffered from severe stages of diabetic ketoacidosis, which brought her to the brink of death. Ms. Wright recovered, but found that managing her disease was and still is complicated, because her doctors can't easily share her medical records. Today, her two children are reaping the benefits of EHRs.

“I Beat Cancer So I Could Dance at My Daughter’s Wedding”

A stage 4 kidney cancer survivor, Dave de Bronkart has learned first-hand that good health care depends on good information. Now he blogs as "e-patient Dave," writing about how health information technology and electronic health records can improve health care by empowering patients to access their health information and take an active role in their own care. This is his story.

Health IT, Advancing America's Health Care  pdf download

Health InformationPrivacy and Security  pdf download

Are You Depressed ? Take a Motrin

Depression has been linked to many other illnesses, genetics, lack of certain vitamins, poor nutrition, lack of exercise and more. 

About one third of people with depression have high levels of inflammation markers in their blood. New research indicates that persistent inflammation affects the brain in ways that are connected with stubborn symptoms of depression, such as anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure.

The results were published online on Nov. 10 in Molecular Psychiatry.

The findings bolster the case that the high-inflammation form of depression is distinct, and are guiding researchers' plans to test treatments tailored for it.

Anhedonia is a core symptom of depression that is particularly difficult to treat, says lead author Jennifer Felger, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine and Winship Cancer Institute.

"Some patients taking antidepressants continue to suffer from anhedonia," Felger says. "Our data suggest that by blocking inflammation or its effects on the brain, we may be able to reverse anhedonia and help depressed individuals who fail to respond to antidepressants."

In a study of 48 patients with depression, high levels of the inflammatory marker CRP (C-reactive protein) were linked with a "failure to communicate", seen through brain imaging, between regions of the brain important for motivation and reward.

High CRP levels were also correlated with patients' reports of anhedonia: an inability to derive enjoyment from everyday activities, such as food or time with family and friends. Low connectivity between another region of the striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was linked to a different symptom: slow motor function, as measured by finger tapping speed.

As a next step, Felger is planning to test whether L-DOPA, a medicine that targets the brain chemical dopamine, can increase connectivity in reward-related brain regions in patients with high-inflammation depression. This upcoming study is being supported by the Dana Foundation.

Felger's previous research in non-human primates suggests that inflammation leads to reduced dopamine release. L-DOPA is a precursor for dopamine and often given to people with Parkinson's disease.

Inflammation linked to weakened reward circuits in depression

In 5 Minutes, He Lets the Blind See - The New York Times

HETAUDA, Nepal — WATCHING the doctor perform is like observing miracles.

 He has restored eyesight to more than 100,000 people, perhaps more than any doctor in history, and still his patients come. They stagger and grope their way to him along mountain trails from remote villages, hoping to go under his scalpel and see loved ones again.

A day after he operates to remove cataracts, he pulls off the bandages — and, lo! They can see clearly. At first tentatively, then jubilantly, they gaze about. A few hours later, they walk home, radiating an ineffable bliss.

Dr. Sanduk Ruit, a Nepali ophthalmologist, may be the world champion in the war on blindness. Some 39 million people worldwide are blind — about half because of cataracts — and another 246 million have impaired vision, according to the World Health Organization.

Dr. Sanduk Ruit, a Nepali ophthalmologist, may be the world champion in the war on blindness. Some 39 million people worldwide are blind — about half because of cataracts — and another 246 million have impaired vision, according to the World Health Organization.

 If you’re a blind person in a poor country, then traditionally you have no hope. But Dr. Ruit has pioneered a simple cataract microsurgery technique that costs only $25 per patient and is virtually always successful. Indeed, his “Nepal method” is now taught in United States medical schools.

In 5 Minutes, He Lets the Blind See - The New York Times

Rapper, Internist ZDoggMD on the 'Hard Doc's Life'

 In this segment of Medscape One-on-One, Editor-in-Chief Eric J. Topol, MD, interviews Zubin Damania, MD, a practicing internist who uses musical parody as a clinical teaching tool and to bring attention to the concerns facing practicing clinicians. Performing under the name ZDoggMD, Dr Damania has used music to broach many topics from conveying the need for a more humane approach to end-of-life care to the frustrations of using a less-than-intuitive electronic health record (EHR) system.

After spending 10 years in the "Hard Doc's Life" working as a hospitalist in the Silicon Valley, he was lured to Las Vegas by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, a former classmate of Dr Damania's wife. There, Dr Damania founded Turntable Health as part of Mr Hsieh's $350 million investment to revitalize downtown Las Vegas.

Rapper, Internist ZDoggMD on the 'Hard Doc's Life'

Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless - The New York Times

 Obama administration officials, urging people to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, have trumpeted the low premiums available on the law’s new marketplaces.

But for many consumers, the sticker shock is coming not on the front end, when they purchase the plans, but on the back end when they get sick: sky-high deductibles that are leaving some newly insured feeling nearly as vulnerable as they were before they had coverage.

“The deductible, $3,000 a year, makes it impossible to actually go to the doctor,” said David R. Reines, 60, of Jefferson Township, N.J., a former hardware salesman with chronic knee pain. “We have insurance, but can’t afford to use it.”

In many states, more than half the plans offered for sale through HealthCare.gov, the federal online marketplace, have a deductible of $3,000 or more, a New York Times review has found. Those deductibles are causing concern among Democrats — and some Republican detractors of the health law, who once pushed high-deductible health plans in the belief that consumers would be more cost-conscious if they had more of a financial stake or skin in the game.

“We could not afford the deductible,” said Kevin Fanning, 59, who lives in North Texas, near Wichita Falls. “Basically I was paying for insurance I could not afford to use.”

He dropped his policy.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, issued a report analyzing premiums in the 38 states that useHealthCare.gov. “Eight out of 10 returning consumers will be able to buy a plan with premiums less than $100 a month after tax credits,” she said.

But in interviews, a number of consumers made it clear that premiums were only one side of the affordability equation.

Exceptions, waivers and options are not known by most ACA enrollees.

Tax Credits are a false incentive for many enrollees

Many are in a category with income low enough they do not pay taxes, however if they have withold from their payroll they would be entitle to a full refund of their witheld taxes.  However, these refunds do not become available until after the early months of the following year. For the initial year of enrollment there are no excess funds for tax credits.

Health officials and insurance counselors cite several mitigating factors. All plans must cover preventive services like mammograms and colonoscopieswithout a deductible or co-payment. Some plans may help pay for some items, like generic drugs or visits to a primary care doctor, before patients have met the deductible. Under the Affordable Care Act, health plans must have an overall limit on out-of-pocket costs, to protect people with serious illness against financial ruin.

In addition, people with particularly low incomes can obtain discounts known as cost-sharing reductions, which lower their deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs if they choose midlevel silver plans. Consumer advocates say this assistance makes insurance a good bargain for people with annual incomes from 100 percent to 250 percent of the poverty level ($11,770 to $29,425 for an individual).

Dave Chandra, a policy analyst at the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, has some advice: “Everyone should come back to the marketplace and shop. You may get a better deal.”

White House Details Privacy Rules for Precision Medicine Initiative - iHealthBeat

On Monday, the White House unveiled a series of privacy principlesfor President Obama's precision medicine initiative, FierceHealthITreports (Hall, FierceHealthIT, 11/11).

Initiative Details

In February, Obama in his fiscal year 2016 budget proposal asked Congress for $215 million in funding for a precision medicine initiative that centers on the creation of a massive database containing the genetic data of at least one million volunteer participants. A panel of experts in September endorsed the plan for creating the database (iHealthBeat, 9/18).

Details of the Privacy Principles

The privacy principles aim to protect the data of individuals participating in the precision medicine initiative. 

White House Details Privacy Rules for Precision Medicine Initiative - iHealthBeat

Medicare blocks Research into Substance buse

HIPAA is interfering with legitimate research goals

In an eye-catching study last week, Nobel Prize for Economics, for 2015, winner Angus Deaton and his co-author Anne Case found that deaths among middle-aged white men are spiking — and concluded that alcohol and substance abuse are at least partly to blame.

Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white and non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century

The finding is "shocking," health care historian Paul Starr wrote at the American Prospect. "This midlife mortality reversal had no parallel in any other industrialized society or in other demographic groups in the United States."But here's an even bigger surprise: The federal agency that oversees the nation's largest trove of health data won't let researchers study the problem. 

In an unusual move, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2013 began quietly deleting substance use disorder data from the files they share with researchers. Up until that point, CMS had freely allowed researchers to use the data to track health care procedures related to substance use across millions of patients.

We know substance abuse deaths are rising. But Medicare won't let researchers study the problem.

Given our results, and the great interest in what is happening, it is clear that the removal of those data is particularly ill-timed, although I am sure it was done for legitimate reasons," Deaton says. "There is an enormous amount of stigma associated with addiction, and perhaps [CMS officials] were concerned about that. I don't know. But it certainly makes it harder to dig down into a vitally important question of social and health policy."

10 well paid jobs of the future - Telegraph

10 well paid jobs of the future - Telegraph

The remedy is to reimagine health

Sometimes the road to imaging health is to imagine disease. The vision of disease and/or death is striking. However health cannot be evaluated strictly by looking at a person.  We all have heard about people who look good, fit, are very active and who suddenly die. It leaves us all perplexed.  However careful appraisal and digging into details results that all is not what it  seems.

The Remedy is to Reimagine Health







The Affordable Care Act is similar to comparing disease and health.  It ain't what it seems. The ACA diverted most clinicians away from the essentials of modern medicine, the rapid technological advances that have occured and even more, that which is on the near horizon.

Healthcare Industry | Digital Revolution | Entrepreneurship | Innovation | The remedy is to reimagine health | Vision Magazine

Healthcare Industry | Digital Revolution | Entrepreneurship | Innovation | The remedy is to reimagine health | Vision Magazine

Medical Marijuana: No snake oil, but it may hold hope for some - AgingCare.com

Growing older is a bit like early childhood. Each day evolves differently.  It is a bit like childhood in reverse. As a child matures he gains some ability, in speech,  motor activity, cognition and emotional development.  The stages are all there.



As we age maturation appears to reverse itself, gradually at first, then more quickly.  The process is sensescence. We recognize some of this by cognitive changes, behavioral changes, physical changes, and at times the expression of infantile or emotional reactions of early youth.





Medical Marijuana: No snake oil, but it may hold hope for some - AgingCare.com

How Doctors Became Subcontractors | THCB

In our healthcare system, the “middleman” is not who you think



Your doctor no longer works for the patient, but to satisfy a payer.



It works like this. You, the patient pay a monthly premium in return for payment coverage to your physician. The requirements for payment are complicated, and if the physician does not meet these inflexible demands he is not paid ("Denied"). Often times there is no explanation.



This has been a gradual shift in doctor-patient relationship which has become the dominant model for reimbursement.  What this means essentially is that your doctor works not for you, but your insurer. You pay the premium for the insurer to reimburse a doctor of their choosing (see your provider directory) Often times your  doctor is part of a group practice and in a closed network.



It has been a pervasive cancerous expansion of limiting your access to care, and you are paying the insurance company to limit your freedom of access. It is part and parcel of the "Nanny State", one in which someone else is deciding what is good or bad for you, the patient.



It is not the only organization which uses the Nanny state approach. It is the means which Government now controls almost anything.Your freedoms are disappearing.



The Health Care Blog carries the important message from MICHEL ACCAD, MD, who says, In our healthcare system, the “middleman” is not who you think"







How Doctors Became Subcontractors | THCB