Intel-GE Care Innovations™ Checks Your Wellness Math
June 26, 2014: Employee Benefit News weighs in on the launch of Intel-GE Care Innovations™ Validation Institute – a new joint venture that helps you elevate your standing in the healthcare industry and let customers and prospects know that you adhere to the highest standards of validity. “Wondering if your wellness program is delivering the goods or […]
When A Cholesterol Test Becomes A Vice Instead Of A Virtue
May 10, 2014: If you ask me to boil down the modern doctor-patient relationship to its most basic elements, cholesterol pretty much sums it up. No single concept has permeated American medical culture to the extent of our anxiety about cholesterol. It doesn’t matter if you’re old or young, male or female, rich or poor, […]
Lung Cancer Screening Program Expands to Offer Early Detection for High-Risk Construction Workers
May 8, 2014: Newswise — SEATTLE – Today, the Building Trades National Medical Screening Program (BTMed) and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) expanded their early lung cancer detection program (ELCD) for high risk construction workers in Western Washington. The BTMed program provides CT scans to help screen for early stage lung cancer in people who […]
24 Tons of Weight Lost, $46M Saved now a Harvard Honor for King County Health Program
May 6, 2014: Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government is honoring a King County program that has saved millions of dollars and reduced sick time, county officials said Tuesday. Under the eight-year-old Healthy Incentives program, county employees adopted exercise routines, began eating healthier foods and quit smoking. The county estimates it has saved $46 million by […]
Statins, Statistics and Statinistics
May 12, 2014: Current medical knowledge is to a large extent based on results from scientific studies. Traditionally, these results are published in peer-reviewed medical journals. Before being accepted, a scientific paper has to go through critical assessment by expert reviewers who will assess the paper’s suitability for publication. The peer review process is intended […]
Spurious Correlations
May 1, 2014: US spending on science, space, and technology correlates with Suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation. Number people who drowned by falling into a swimming-pool correlates with Number of films Nicolas Cage appeared in. Per capita consumption of cheese (US) correlates with Number of people who died by becoming tangled in their bed […]
Fish Oil – Is it good for you or not?
May 11, 2014: To Al Lewis, an early sceptic of the fish oil evidence. fish oil capsules 300×143 Is There Something Fishy About the Fish Oil Story? Anybody who hasn’t heard yet that omega 3 fatty acids (found in fatty fish, like sardine, salmon, trout, mackerel) are good for your heart must have been asleep […]
Committee Mandates "Wellness Screenings" for State Employees
May 22, 2014: LITTLE ROCK, AR – A public employees insurance committee voted Thursday to mandate state workers to undergo an annual checkup in order to avoid a $75 monthly increase in health insurance. The State and Public School Life and Health Insurance Board Benefits Sub-Committee said the move will ensure state employees take a […]
Promoting Healthy Behaviors
May 1, 2014: A five-year study on the impact of incentives. The health landscape is changing dramatically. Total healthcare spending in the United States comprises around 20 percent of the GDP,1 yet for all that spending, our nation is not getting healthier. With declining health trends, an aging population, and the growing prevalence of chronic […]
We Live in Testing Times: Teaching Rational Test Ordering in General Practice
May 1, 2014: Pathology, imaging and other investigations have a critical role in the diagnosis, monitoring and screening for disease in medical practice. Reference books of medical tests are at least as old as the Hippocratic Corpus. The number of available tests has risen rapidly in recent decades and the Royal College of Pathologists of […]
Population Health Management: New Perspectives on a Familiar Concept
May 1, 2014: Over the past several years, population health management (PHM) has become a catchphrase for what many believe is a transition to a more outcomes-based approach to health care. While there has been a renewed focus on outcomes and treatment of entire patient populations, this is hardly a new phenomenon. Managing population health […]
The $50,000 Physical
June 4, 2014: Recently, I was discussing the physical examination with some of our house staff after a conference on evidence-based medicine. I asked whether there was evidence to support performing an annual physical examination on a healthy patient. They did not know. “It couldn’t hurt,” one resident offered. I countered that it might, and […]
