Medical Care

Everything modern medicine gets wrong
Before there was health insurance, there were almshouses — county hospitals for the chronically ill, available to anyone. And Dr. Victoria Sweet, author of the book “God’s Hotel,” spent 20 years practicing medicine at the last almshouse in America, San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital. So she knows a thing or two about long-term patient care.  Market Watch

Sorting Socks Before Surgery: Younger Women Physicians & Domestic Duties
Physician-researchers' use of time shows marked gender differences, according to a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Both men and women without children spent comparable amounts of time on domestic duties. However, among those with children and employed spouses, women spent almost 9 hours per week more on domestic duties than men, who spent more time on research. Women were also more than twice as likely to take time off for disruptions of child-care arrangements.  Journal Watch

CDC Has Remedy for Overuse of Antibiotics
Doctors in some hospitals are prescribing three times more antibiotics than physicians treating similar patients in other institutions, according to the CDC. The variation suggests that in several common situations, antibiotic prescribing could be improved by more than 30%, the agency said in a Vital Signs study online in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. MedPage Today

Changes in hospital orders increase pertussis immunization rates
Changing the hospital orders for women who have just delivered a child led to a 69% increase in the new mothers' pertussis vaccination rate, providing protection for themselves and their newborns against the disease, commonly known as whooping cough, according to a study in the March issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. Eurekalert!

Multidisciplinary teams helped marathon bombing survivors rebuild their lives
The Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy (JOSPT) and The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery (JBJS) co-published a Special Report today entitled It Takes a Team: The 2013 Boston Marathon – Preparing for and Recovering from a Mass-Casualty Event. This unique report highlights multidisciplinary planning, integrated clinical teamwork, and continuity of care and is being distributed in a cooperative arrangement to JBJS and JOSPT subscribers. Because it is of interest to all emergency preparedness and health care professionals, both journals are also making it available for download at no cost. Eurekalert!

Centenarians epitomise our fears about growing old
The field of regenerative medicine is trying to hedge our bets. Instead of waiting until we can overhaul our metabolism, it aims to clean up the damage we accumulate in our cells, tissues, and organs. There are several current projects to grow organs from one's own stem cells or even skin cells. There are patients around the world with trachea and cartilage replacements made using this technique. Soon, regenerative medicine will target therapies beyond organs and at the cellular level. If our cells are always in tip-top shape we may not need to replace our organs. MedicalXpress

Nurses can perform colonoscopies as well as docs
Colonoscopy quality and safety are comparable for nurse and physician endoscopy trainees, according to a study published in the March issue of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. MedicalXpress

Prehospital alerts let stroke patients skip the emergency room
Prehospital stroke alerts by emergency medical services (EMS) personnel can shorten the time to effective treatment with "clot-busting" drugs for patients with stroke, according to a report in the March issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. Eurekalert!

Patients' stories used to improve care on wards
A research project led by Oxford University is showing how patient experiences can be used to improve healthcare – not through targets and surveys, but by getting doctors, nurses and patients talking together about care on the ward. Oxford University
Research shows patient satisfaction can be high, even in emergency care situations
The Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation (MHIF) today announced the results of survey research aimed at discovering patient and family satisfaction with acute care transfers for patients with STEMI (ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction), a severe heart attack best treated quickly with specialized care. The results, based on 98 patient and 80 family surveys, suggest that patient satisfaction with care decisions and communication can be high, even in emergency care situations that require rapid and complex decision making and, in this case, quick transport to a different hospital for a critically ill patient for whom family may not be present. The full results of this research are published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Eurekalert!