President Obama announced plans to host a live, televised meeting with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders to discuss and revive health care reform.  In an interview with Katie Couric aired prior to the Super Bowl, Obama said of the proposed summit, “I want to come back [after the President's Weekend break] and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward.”
The Obama administration realizes that the opportunity to reform health care is slipping away.  The proposed …

WebMD offers an interesting feature on the doctor/patient relationship.  Brenda Della Casa had been seeing her primary care physician for two years and had brushed off her concerns about getting rushed care – until she had a health scare she couldn’t ignore. She told her doctor she was experiencing terrible back pain and stomachaches. Her doctor checked her, said she was fine, and sent her on her way.
Five days later, Della Casa, was traveling and had pains so severe she could barely move. When she received a voicemail from her …

John Halamka, MD, is Chief Information Officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Chief Information Officer at Harvard Medical School.  He recently asked his students of his healthcare I.T. class at Harvard to read his EHR implementation project and “then develop a list of barriers to EHR implementation in their organizations.”  The result was the following top 10 barriers to successfully deploying an EHR:
10. Usability – products are hard to use and not well engineered for clinician workflow.
9. Politics/naysayers – every organization has a powerful clinician or administrator who …

CHICAGO – The American Medical Association announced today its new Web site registry supported by the National Disaster Life Support (NDLS) that can easily coordinate the deployment of physicians who are willing to volunteer with federal and private sector response organizations in Haiti. Web site can be accessed and physicians can sign up at www.ama-assn.org/go/haiti-volunteer.
“While hospitals in Haiti have reported a decrease in emergency patients and hospitalizations since a week ago, the need for continued medical assistance is still significant,” said AMA President J. James Rohack, M.D. “As a result, the need …

The only agreed-upon conclusion regarding autism is that it’s on the rise.  Aside from that, researchers can’t seem to agree on much.  The Wall Street Journal today profiles several studies questioning autism’s origins and causes.  In California, the prevalence of autistic children is greater in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills than in the rest of the state, even though those areas have just 1% of the population.  So is it environmental?  Is it due to a greater knowledge base and more available resources of the parents?
One theory that seems to …

President Obama was about half way through the State of the Union when he finally addressed health reform.  He emphasized the phrase “health insurance reform” a few times — which could indicate a shift away from a complete overhaul of the health care system.
Here is the meat of the president’s comments on reform:
“It is precisely to relieve the burden on middle-class families that we still need health insurance reform.… I took on health care because of the stories I’ve heard from Americans with pre-existing conditions whose lives depend on getting coverage; …

Good news for all of your patients over 70 who might want a second run at the dessert buffet:  Overweight adults over the age of 70 are less likely to die over a 10-year period than their normal-weight peers, according to a new study out of Australia, which, by the way, is the world’s third most obese nation behind the US and UK.
Lead researcher Leon Flicker, of the University of Western Australia, studied over 9,200 people ages 70 – 75, followed them for 10 years (or until death) and grouped …

By Lori Heim, MD
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The American Academy of Family Physicians applauds President Obama for continuing to shine a spotlight on the need for health care reform. It is, indeed, a problem that will not go away. The realities that started the debate about health care remain.
For more than 20 years, the American Academy of Family Physicians has supported health care coverage for everyone. As the President noted, we must provide health care coverage to people who cannot afford it or who have been turned away due to pre-existing conditions. We also …

As expected, President Obama yesterday said that lawmakers should not try to “jam through” a health reform bill before newly elected Republican senator Scott Brown goes to DC.  However, in his first interview since the Democrats lost their supermajority, Obama told ABC News that lawmakers should “move quickly to coalesce around” parts of the health-care bill that both parties can agree on.
“We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment …

Patients in health maintenance organizations in California should see their waiting times for doctors’ appointments reduced and even their telephone calls to physicians answered promptly under sweeping new rules that, for the first time, establish time standards in medical services.  And if this project is successful, look for a national roll-out over the next few years.
California regulators said the state would be the first with such time requirements, which demand that H.M.O. patients be seen by a general practitioner within 10 business days of requesting an appointment and a specialist …