LeapFrog vs Consumer Reports

What hospital is the best in your area? Which hospital is the safest? Many times the public uses word-of-mouth from their friends and families to choose. A lot of times our own insurance policies determine which hospital we choose. Consumer Reports just rolled out their own version of safety rankings comparable to another version LeapFrog Group that was released last year.

In June, Leapfrog Group, a Washington D.C.-based hospital safety advocacy group, created its own safety rankings, but unlike Consumer Reports’ numerical scores, Leapfrog used A, B and C letter grades, similar to New York City’s restaurant grading system that only has three grades.

The director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, John Santa M.D., explained the report as a type of advocacy. “We’re doing this in part because 12 years ago the Institute of Medicine made the same suggestions that we’re making. This kind of information needs to be publicly reported, these problems need to be solved, but the hospitals still haven’t done it,” he said. There are differences in reporting between the two groups. “We each looked at some different measures,” said Leah Binder, CEO of the Leapfrog Group. “Particularly, they [Consumer Reports] looked at patient satisfaction measures and rates of CT scans. We didn’t look at those things. We looked at injuries, errors and accidents only. It’s kind of like having two different book reviews. Different reviewers have different interests.”

This is a good thing in that it helps educate the public about hospital safety. This is a bad thing is that the guidelines for determining safety is different from study to study. Where does your hospital rank?

Not By the Hair of My Chinny Chin Chin

Chin implants are the fastest-growing cosmetic procedure according to The America Society of Plastic Surgeons (or called the “chinplant”) in 2011. Of course, as aging happens and things begin to drop, the chin is something that helps hold the face in place. A lack of a chin can make the lower half of a person’s profile look weak and unattractive. And now that everyone’s pictures are being plastered all over the internet with Facebook, twitter, and videos like Facetime, it’s no wonder chinplants are on the rise. The humorous part of this tale to me is that I sort of smugly smile. I have a chin. In fact, I have enough chins for a couple of people. I lovingly refer to my chin as a Jay Leno chin, and on a female, it’s not necessarily something so desired.

I used to not think a thing about my chin. I obsessed over my upper lip which sort of dips down like a cupid’s bow (ever see Little Albert on Little House on the Prairie back in the 1980’s?). I remember kids (oh, aren’t they mean?) who would call me bird lip. Even the husband of a friend I haven’t seen in YEARS remarked at dinner just a couple of years ago, “You don’t even have a top lip.” Stop. Where does that even COME from considering he was carrying around an extra forty pounds, and I would NEVER dare say a word about their weight. It just didn’t seem fair.

What was even less fair was the time when I was at the local orthodontist’s office getting my braces off for the second time. I was thrilled. No more cross bite. My teeth were SO straight! The orthodontist to the local celebrities flashed his over whitened straight smile and brought with him the x-ray of my skull. Creepy. He showed it to me and then said while pointing his golden pen toward my chin, “Now if you would just have a smaller chin HERE, you would have the PERFECT profile.” No. He. Didn’t.

I couldn’t believe he said it, but it sent me into a google searching frenzy at home, “Chin reductions, chin shortening, etc….” I tried them all, but all in all, I’ve never had anything changed about my chin.

So today’s news about chinplasty being the fastest rising surgery of today really makes me smile and stick my chin out even further!

Whooping Cough Reaching Record Levels

I remember how I felt about vaccines prior to becoming a mother. They were effective. They were needed. They saved lives. However, my thinking changed the first time I stared at my newborn son seconds after birth, and the reports of the possibility of a link between autism and vaccines and the higher rate in males vs females really challenged my thinking. I ran to the bookstore buying all of Dr. Sears' books, scoured the Internet for information, and joined forums where it was cool to be a home birthing, baby wearing, baby led weaning, crunchy, baby food making, raw milk drinking and cloth diapering momma. I suddenly felt like the worst mother in the world, and all my sense about science left as the prolactin levels rose.

I declined hepatitis B vaccine for my infant. Hell, he was not a IV drug user and wasn't having sex yet.

Over time, he is finally up-to-date, and my daughter received all as scheduled (though I did delay hepatitis B with her as well until she reached three months, I believe. I have definitely been more laid back this time. And I have also seen the stories of the prevalence of diseases previously almost eradicated making a huge comeback. Unfortunately herd immunity is only good if all subscribe. Sporadic cases are becoming more normal... and with that deaths.

Last month, Washington state had 640 confirmed cases of whooping cough (or pertussis) compared to only 94 in the same period last year.

The connection between autism and vaccines have never been confirmed. I cannot think of anything more responsible as a parent than getting your kids vaccinated. I guess you can say my thinking was challenged, but I have reached full circle.

Arizona Academy of Family Physicians

Laura Hahn, the director of the Arizona Academy of Family Physicians is spearheading the argument against the Arizona Pharmacy Alliance's attempt to allow pharmacies to dispense vaccinations without the need of a prescription.  Unbelievably, the pharmacists won the first round.  Both sides are using public health as their argument.  The pharmacists are arguing that the rates of the public health actually getting the flu vaccine (among others) are lower than the CDC recommends due to the lack of health insurance.  Doctors are arguing that pharmacists would be putting people at risk. It's quite ironic to me that the very people preaching about vaccinations and compliance are the ones who just want to make an extra dollar.  It's not about public health.  One point:

Hahn said her doctors have no problem with pharmacists administering routine flu or pneumonia vaccines without a prescription.

“But certain vaccines, for the safety of the public, need to be given in a medical (or) home situation,” she said.

Some of that, she said, is because a doctor would be more familiar with a patient’s family history and the possibility of allergic reactions. And some of it, Hahn said, is that giving a vaccine involves more than just injecting it.

She specifically mentioned the HPV vaccine being marketed to teen girls designed to prevent a type of virus transmitted by sexual contact. Hahn said a doctor who might prescribe this would tell a patient that the vaccine prevents neither pregnancy nor other sexually transmitted diseases, “not things that would be discussed (with a patient) by a pharmacist.”

“Patient safety has to come first,” Hahn said.

Patient safety has to come first?  You are telling me that it is assumed a pharmacist cannot tell a patient that the HPV virus won't protect them from STDs?

What is coming first here is the Almighty Dollar yet again.  Doctors don't want to lose more money to pharmacists.

And YES.  We did take years of pharmacology vs. a semester by most physicians.  Do we claim that the patients' health is at risk because a doctor accidentally gives two drugs that interact with one another together because he/she didn't know?

Article here.

Pharmacy News for the Moment January 2009

BISMARCK – One of the most anticipated issues of the session finally comes up for its hearing this week. It’s the pharmacy ownership bill, which proposes to repeal a 1960s law that requires pharmacies in North Dakota to be majority-owned by pharmacists. Other bills getting hearings this week call for a new issuance of license plates, higher traffic fines, a ban on bottle rockets, no sales tax on clothing and a mandated annual football game between the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University. The pharmacy law repeal is House Bill 1440, and such a huge crowd is expected for the hearing that it has been moved to the Heritage Center auditorium. It is 9 a.m. Tuesday.

Both supporters and opponents of the repeal have been running television ads for months asking the public to contact legislators.

Supporters of the repeal include chain stores Wal-Mart and Walgreens, which helped form North Dakotans for Affordable Health Care, www.ndrx.org.

Opponents, who want to keep the law, countered with North Dakotans for Prescription Facts, www.knowtherxtruthnd.com.

Last week, a group of opponents of the repeal – the North Dakota Farmers Union, North Dakota Retail Association and North Dakota Grocers Association – said that if HB 1440 is enacted, it could mean the loss of 600 rural North Dakota jobs and 70 small town pharmacies.

They quoted from the New Rules Project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis, which published “The Benefits of North Dakota’s Pharmacy Ownership Law,” www.newrules.org.

Patients Like Me...

Yes, MySpace move over... there's now an online site for patients with the same afflictions.  Interesting!

Minnesota health system purges drug trinkets

By STEVE KARNOWSKI, Associated Press WriterSat Jan 19, 6:42 AM ET

When a Duluth-based operator of hospitals and clinics purged the pens, notepads, coffee mugs and other promotional trinkets drug companies had given its doctors over the years, it took 20 shopping carts to haul the loot away.

The operator, SMDC Health System, intends to ship the 18,718 items to the west African nation of Cameroon.

The purge underscored SMDC's decision to join the growing movement to ban gifts to doctors from drug companies.

SMDC scoured its four hospitals and 17 clinics across northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin for clipboards, clocks, mouse pads, stuffed animals and other items decorated with logos for such drugs as Nexium, Vytorin and Lipitor.

Trinkets, free samples, free food and drinks, free trips and other gifts have pervaded the medical profession, but observers say that's starting to change.

"We just decided for a lot of reasons we didn't want to do that any longer," Dr. Kenneth Irons, chief of community clinics for SMDC, said Friday.

So SMDC put together a comprehensive conflict-of-interest policy that, among other things, limits access to its clinics by drug company representatives. Employees suggested the "Clean Sweep" trinket roundup, Irons said.

Ken Johnson, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, had heard of hospitals and clinics banning promotional items before, but said SDMC's purge was unprecedented.

"I've never seen nor heard of a systematic roundup of pens and coffee mugs before," Johnson said. "It's a bit draconian. But the onus is on us now to do a better job of explaining the job and the importance of marketing representatives. Unfortunately there are a lot of cynics in America who want to think the worst."

SDMC's effort was motivated by a desire to show patients that its 450 doctors were serious about keeping prescription drug costs down and making unbiased medical decisions, Irons said.

The backlash against the cozy relationships between doctors and drug makers gained steam from article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2006. It said research had shown that even cheap gifts, such as pens, can affect doctors' prescribing decisions.

The Prescription Project, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, was founded to promote the JAMA article's recommendations for countering aggressive marketing to physicians by the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.

Marcia Hams, assistant director of the project, said she too hadn't heard of a roundup like SDMC's, but hopes other health organizations follow its lead.

"This seems like a pretty aggressive way to kick off a policy like that," she said. "It sends an important message, I think, for how a strict policy can be implemented in an effective way."

Kaiser Permanente, the country's largest HMO, Veterans Affairs hospitals and medical centers at several universities have recently adopted strict conflict-of-interest policies, such as gift bans, Hams said.

Many of SMDC's items will be going to the health system of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon, which has three hospitals, and several rural health centers.

Irons said there shouldn't be a conflict of interest in Cameroon because the advertised drugs aren't available there.

___

On the Net:

SMDC Health System: http://www.smdc.org

The Prescription Project: http://www.prescriptionproject.org

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America: http://www.phrma.org

About time someone did something good with all the crap that drug reps use to talk physicians into the latest and greatest drug they are peddling.