Sometimes, delaying treatment while regularly monitoring the progress of a disease — a strategy called “watchful waiting” — may be better than starting treatment right away.
If hospitals want to reach patients, they have to go where the patients are–online, where patients are posting to Facebook, chatting with each other through Twitter, and sounding off on Yelp!, experts tell Seattle conference.
Fifty-five percent of adults surveyed gave the U.S. health care system a C or D, when asked to assign it a grade. Eleven percent gave it an F.
Many patients cannot understand their health providers advice or the labels on their prescriptions, leading to higher rates of hospital readmission, expensive and unnecessary complications, and even death–all at an estimated annual cost of $238 billion.
Health care accounts for $10 billion — or nearly a third — of the state’s two-year budget and so is a prime target for cuts.
Swedish Community Health is a pilot program, built on a model called the patient-centered medical home. The focus is on wellness, disease prevention and day-to-day management of chronic illnesses.
The concept of a “medical home”—a clinic where you are followed by a team of primary care providers who know you and can coordinate your care—is getting more attention these days. (See NPR’s story on Swedish Medical Center’s “medical home” program in Ballard below.) Here Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare [...]
Seattle’s KPLU reporter Keith Seinfeld has a story on NPR this week about Swedish Hospital’s new “medical home” clinic in Ballard. LocalHealthGuide’s story from March is below. By Keith Seinfeld, NPR News August 7, 2009 This story comes from KHN partner NPR When President Obama and other Democrats talk about changing the health care system, [...]
The idea behind the medical-home model is to create a primary-care team that provides continuous, coordinated care to patients at one location.
The President’s Council of Economic Advisers predicts strong growth in health-related employment in the U.S. over the coming years. Health care practitioners and technicians, which include physicians, registered nurses, and other health professionals and technicians, are expected to be in increasing demand. Jobs for medical records and health information technicians are also projected to increase. [...]
Creating a “medical home” to help patients cope with chronic and often complicated health problems is really an old idea that is getting a new look as health providers try to find ways to improve the quality of care and reduce medical costs. In this column, Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the U.S. Agency for Health [...]
“In health care, one size does not fit all, and treatments that are good for one patient aren’t necessarily good, or even safe, for you,” writes Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. To try to find out which treatments are best for which patients, Clancy’s agency has been [...]
LocalHealthGuide is a health news and information web service for Seattle and the Puget Sound Region. We are independent and unaffiliated with any hospital, medical association or insurer. If you have questions or if your group has an upcoming event that you would like us to cover, please let us know by going to our "Contact Us" page and dropping us a note. -- Michael McCarthy, Editor
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Lost in translation: Lack of trained interpreters can lead to medical errors
Interpreter services at hospitals and other medical settings are often inadequate, forcing family members, including children, to step in, or the task falls to medical staff members who may not speak the language well.
Some insurers deny ER coverage to people who have been drinking
Laws in more than half the states permit insurers to deny payment for medical services related to alcohol or drug use. Faced with the prospect of not getting paid for care, some ER personnel sidestep the problem by simply not testing patients’ blood or urine for alcohol.
Travel insurance can protect your wallet — and your health on vacation
Think your regular health insurance policy will cover you if you get into medical trouble overseas?
Don’t bet on it.
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