A bleeding gash in the back of his head and in a wheelchair, my father and his caregiver were trapped in the elevator of their condo en route to the emergency room. Down to the Lobby level and the doors would not open. Then, it rapidly ascended to the 19th floor all on its own. [...]
Rate your doctor. That's what an online survey is attempting to do. It is a research project to figure out how best to get patients to share their experience with their doctors. The results will be used to better understand how well doctors in California meet the needs of patients. CalQualityCare currently collects ratings on physician [...]
I just returned from a conference on the use of mobile devices in healthcare. Here's what stood out: 1. Mobile is being used successfully with chronic diseases by keeping patients out of the hospital, which reduces cost. 2. Many mobile apps are used by healthy people to monitor their weight, calories and other health information. [...]
Who pays when there is a car wreck and both drivers -who were young and healthy - have neither car insurance nor health insurance? Buying insurance is paying for something that might not happen. In fact, both the insured and the insurance companies count on the probability that the negative event, such as a car [...]
What happens if you build a web site and no one comes? That is a question that the health insurance marketplaces won't have to answer. Deluge. Inundate. Overwhelm. Apt descriptions of what happened nationally and here in California as the health insurance marketplaces went live at the federal site Healthcare.gov and the California site, Covered [...]
Unabashed praise for Farzad Mostashari is flowing in from all over the healthcare community since he announced his resignation yesterday after two years as National HIT Coordinator. His four years, two years as Deputy National Coordinator, was a wisp of time in an industry that has struggled to keep the nation's healthcare from falling behind [...]
How could it happen? Over 2,000 bolts used in the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge are at risk of failure. The bolts were galvanized to make them harder; oddly they are too hard. This was discovered by accident when recently installed bolts cracked after being tightened. Unfortunately, huge numbers of bolts had already been installed [...]
At a time when healthcare organizations are supposed to be improving quality of care and engaging patients and families, my recent visit to Kaiser's Oakland hospital was surprisingly because the hospital staff was careless and indifferent. These are the things in the overall operation of the hospital that raised red flags and made me question the [...]
BYOB - Bring Your Own Bottles, a humorous medication safety video! Enjoy. BYOB
The U.S. Supreme court is expected to rule tomorrow on the constitutionality of imposing a mandate that everyone have health insurance. Everyone excludes immigrants. The big question is how much of the healthcare reform law will be kept in place if the individual mandate is removed. Some facts. The individual mandate means two percent of [...]