Good doctor-patient communication is a key to improving the quality of your care, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research says. and so the agency is providing free tools online for patients and providers to get the conversation started.
Hospitals in the West had the fewest potentially preventable admissions (8 percent) while those in the South had the most (11 percent).
AHRQ’s “Men: Stay Healthy at Any Age” covers the screening tests to get, whether you need medicines to prevent diseases, and steps you can take for good health.
“Don’t assume your doctor has all the relevant information at his or her fingertips. Usually, in fact, the doctor does not.” — Dr. Carolyn Clancy In this month’s column, Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, provides tips on how to make sure you can get information from your [...]
Efforts to improve the quality of U.S. health care and reduce medical errors are proving to be disappointingly slow, writes Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, in this column. “If you get sick or have surgery, you have only a 3 in 5 chance of getting the care [...]
“It took 2 years of questions and followup before actress and health advocate Fran Drescher learned she had uterine cancer,” writes Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in her new column. “Today,” she writes, “Ms. Drescher is an 8-year cancer survivor, due in large part to her asking [...]
One out of every five prescriptions written today are to treat a condition for which the drug has not been approved. Such “off-label” use of drugs is common because under the law doctors are given considerable freedom to use their clinical judgement when it comes to practicing medicine. Still, taking a drug for a condition [...]
Asian-Pacific Islanders are 16% more likely to die than whites in U.S. hospitals from serious, but treatable complications, according to the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Why this is so is not known but experts speculate that Asian-Pacific Islanders go to hospitals that give lower quality care, may receive poorer quality of care [...]
Dr. Carolyn Clancy Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, writes a regular advice column for consumers to help them navigate the health-care system. In this column, Dr Clancy talks about what steps you should take when you’re told you have a disease or medical condition. She describes five [...]
Under new rules, Medicare will no longer pay hospitals for care needed because of medical errors. In her regular column, Dr Carolyn Clancy, director of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, says the new rules should help make hospitals safer and improve the quality of hospital care.
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Seattle Times Health News
Experts divided over recommendation to screen children for cholesterol
Some clinicians say universal screening is an important tool to help identify children who are genetically predisposed to high cholesterol and to pinpoint others who could benefit from treatment. Others express concerns that screening may do more harm than good.
People in state high-risk insurance plans often feel left behind
The federal health law set up new plans that are cheaper and more comprehensive than the older ones run by states but consumers need to go without insurance for six months to qualify.
Peeking in on your doctor’s notes
Although federal law guarantees patients the right to examine and get copies of their medical records, providers haven’t always made it easy to do so. But the movement to give patients direct access to their health information has picked up steam, and policymakers have encouraged it as a way to empower patients to help manage their health and their medical care.
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