Sicko and Michael Moore tells a real story!

There were many reviews and critiques about Michael Moore's Sicko. I have not seen it but I will be soon. But I have read enough.
Insurance companies are making money on people's sickness. Out of 300 million people in USA, if they made $1000 out of 216 million! Then you can be sure they will do anything keep this free money flowing.
This is a story that came out of Sicko!
"Others tell more heartwrenching stories of loved ones lost because their health insurance would not approve their surgery or chemotherapy. Some whistleblowers support these allegations.

One of them is Dr. Linda Peeno, former medical reviewer at Humana. “In the spring of 1987 as a physician, I denied a man a necessary operation that would have saved his life and thus caused his death,” testifies Peeno. “In fact what I did was saved the company half a million dollars. For this.""

Go get sick at Sicko! or learn more!!

Tags: sicko, michael moore

DICOM, PACS and Open Source

Open source tools have helped promote DICOM standards from early on in relation to PACS use. The tools – which can be used as fully implemented production software – can also be useful for teaching as well as ways to measure performance, said Ron Sweeney, engineer 3, Spectrum Health, Technology and Information Solutions of Grand Rapids, Mich., at the Open Source PACS Tools session at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (formerly SCAR) meeting in Austin, Texas.

Of course, open source is a big deal these days. It’s a major buzz word in the tech world, and even PRI (Public Radio International) has taken the name for one of its programs. Many open source tools are in existence, but as of yet many of them are not being used in medical settings because they have not been documented for use in “PACS trenches,” said Sweeney.

Read the rest at HealthImaging

Tags: DICOM, Open Source, PACS

Medicinal Digital Photography!

I found this article about Digital Photography at iPath site. I think it is a very interesting article and I decided to publish a little of it to wet your appetite before forwarding to the actual article with much more information.
David Riba Torrecillas^*, Jorge Soler-González and Antonio Rodríguez-Rosich

*ABS Tremp, Institut Catalá de la Salut; ABS Rambla Ferran, Institut Catalá de la Salut; Medicine Faculty, Universitat de Lleida (UdL), Institut Catalá de la Salut, Lleida, Spain

Over the past decade, digital imaging technology has become widespread: most cameras now sold in North America and Europe are digital rather than film based. Digital photography has become an easy, inexpensive and rapid way to capture clinical images.¹ Medical fields such as dermatology, radiology and ophthalmology² have been using digital imaging for some time, but family doctors are also well positioned to take advantage of these evolving imaging trends.³ Digital photography can help physicians provide better medical care by adding accurate, easy-to-capture clinical images directly to electronic records (replacing inaccurate or inadequate clinical descriptors or stylized pen and ink sketches in our notes). The growth and evolution of lesions and wounds can also be monitored. In addition, this format allows images to be shared through telemedicine services⁴ or for images to be sent (through intranet or the internet) quickly and efficiently from one health care level to another for consultations with colleagues or for teaching⁵ and research.

We aim to briefly summarize the approaches that we have found useful for introducing digital photography into the family physician's practice.
Now the link to the real thing

Tags: Medicine, digital imaging, medical imaging

Internet Pathalogy Suite, iPath

iPath is an open source software project with the aim of developing a multi-purpose communication platform for tele medicine, distance learning and medical knowledge management. If you are interested in using this software for your own purpose, please visit sourceforge site.

iPath started from a research project at the Department of Pathology of the University Hospital Basel. In the beginning, the aim was to create a framework for remote frozen section. The first experiments date back to 1992 when a test installation using ISDN was set up with the regional hopital in Samedan.

There is also a test server installed that you can use to verify the operation of the server and the application. But you will have to register here before you could access the server. The list server has both open and closed groups and could be viewed here.

http://www.txoutcome.org/

Tags: iPath, tele-medicene

Google is good for Search, but not for health

Patients and doctors disagree on some essential issues according to three new surveys conducted by Consumer Reports National Research Center. The survey of 39,090 patients and 335 primary-care physicians revealed discrepancies between doctors’ and patients’ perceptions of following medical advice, the role of prescription drug ads in the exam room, and the value of online research of medical conditions. The full results of the survey as well as advice on how consumers can get better care from their doctors appearED in the February issue of Consumer Reports.
n total, 39,090 patients were surveyed about their doctor visits in two parts. Consumer Reports asked 25,184 respondents to its 2006 Annual Questionnaire about visiting the doctor for treatment of their most bothersome illness. During the summer of 2006, 13,906 online subscribers were polled about preventive-care visits. (CR acknowledges that its subscribers might not be representative of the population as a whole). Consumer Reports also questioned a random sample of 335 primary-care physicians about how things look from the other side of the table.

Consumer Reports’ survey results also reveal that doctors think the health-care system works much better for drug and health-insurance companies than for primary-care doctors and their patients.

CR notes that the pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars marketing prescription drugs directly
to patients; and wining and dining doctors so they’ll prescribe them.

-- Knowing the side effects. Among patients who received prescriptions from their doctors, 31 percent reported that their doctor didn’t adequately explain possible side effects, so Consumer Reports recommends that patients should ask questions about drugs prescribed during the visit. Also, nine percent of patients said their doctor did not review their other prescriptions to check for potentially harmful interactions with the newly
prescribed drug.

-- Requesting prescription drugs. According to the survey, patients most frequently ask about advertised drugs for acid reflux, impotence, allergies, and insomnia – mainstays of the television ad lineup. Only seven percent of patients admitted to asking for advertised drugs for their most bothersome conditions.

-- Knowing the cost. Two-thirds of patients reported that doctors never brought up the costs of treatments and tests.

Consumer reports Article

Tags: Consumer Reports, health, pharmaceutical industry

Oral contraceptive Lybrel, approved by FDA

FDA as expected on Tuesday approved Wyeth's oral contraceptive Lybrel, which is designed to eliminate monthly menstrual periods, the Los Angeles Times reports (Kaplan, Los Angeles Times, 5/23). Lybrel, which contains a lower dose of synthetic hormones in a daily dose than traditional oral contraceptives, is taken 365 days a year with no placebo pills. The usual regimen for oral contraceptives is 21 active pills taken consecutively, followed by seven placebo pills. According to Wyeth, 59% of women taking Lybrel stopped bleeding after six months, but 18% of women participating in a clinical trial dropped out because of bleeding or spotting (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 5/22). A European trial found that the drug prevented pregnancy in all 323 women who took it, according to Wyeth (Los Angeles Times, 5/23).

Kaiser Network

David Creek Meats recalls beef for suspected E. coli O157:H7

The beef products were made by David Creek Meats based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, between March 1 and April 30 for Gordon Food Service. They were dispatched to distribution centers in Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

The items under recall include boxes of mechanically tenderized steaks and ground beef of different weights.

The possible E. coli contamination was discovered by the Michigan Department of Public Health. No illnesses associated with using the affected beef products have been officially reported.

Medical news report