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Tuesday, December 6, 2022

Digital.Health

I have been exploring the recently launched Digital.Health repository. It is an exceptional digital health resource. https://digital.health/

Monday, August 8, 2022

What is health journalism?

According to wikipedia that there are not many courses or career paths specifically on medical journalism, but it is hard to imagine that this field is not going to expand in future.

Recently the McMaster Daily News reported on a YouTube channel called ViolinMD created by Dr. Siobhan Deshauer. She was a fifth year medical resident (recently finished residency successfully) but has been vlogging about her experience quite frequently since she started residency. She was a graduate of the Michael G. DeGroote school of medicine, which is why you can get a BA in music (violin) and still get into a medical school like McMaster. In one of the episodes she mentions "medical journalism" as she did a stint doing such for ABC news as a consultant on their medical news team. I can't recall that specific episode - because I have watched so many of them - but we can imagine that one of the reasons she got that consultancy work was because of her creative media skills vlogging her real lived experience on the front lines.

In Canada one of the most famous medical journalists might be Andre Picard, health columnist for the Globe and Mail. His recent book "Neglected No More:The Urgent Need to Improve the Lives of Canada's Elders in the Wake of a Pandemic", shed a lot of light on the state of long term care in the Canadian system.

There is a health column in the New York times called "Diagnosis" written by Lisa Sanders MD, who used write scripts for the TV Series House. I watched the TV documentary version of it about solving rare medical mysteries, like it is detective work. Of course there are the likes of Sanjay Gupta, Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN, etc.

There are also investigative journalism books that really delve into medical issues. Michael Pollan wrote "How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence" which is a master study of psychedelics research. The book by author James Nestor called "Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art" is a pioneering investigation into the new research and evidence on human breathing and the effect on our overall health. It is fascinating to see how these science minded though "non-health practitioners" explore these fields so relevant to medical well being. There are many more books by journalists that explore medical and health issues.

An area tangential to all this are the scientists who study the reporting of health information in various media looking for evidence of factual inaccuracy, let alone stories that create false hope or deceive the public. Timothy Caulfield is famous for debunking the myths and misconceptions, and the McMaster Health Forum has an evidence based health research group focusing on policy decision making for various health topics of concern.

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) to go live with patient-empowered EMR

https://www.canhealth.com/2022/05/04/hhs-to-go-live-with-patient-empowered-emr/

HHS to go live with patient-empowered EMR
May 4, 2022

Filomena Canci

HAMILTON, Ont. – In June, Hamilton Health Sciences is introducing its new Epic hospital information system. The electronic solution will make patient records available to clinicians in a centralized location, reducing the need to call up different applications. Moreover, patients will have access to their medical information – including test results, lab results and much more – through the Epic MyChart app.
“Our Vision is to provide ‘Best Care for All’,” says Filomena Canci (pictured), HHS’ chief nursing information officer and one of the leaders working to bring Epic to the hospital. “Not only will Epic improve clinical care delivery and enhance patient experience, it will also help us innovate and remain at the forefront of health care in Canada.”
Epic replaces the current health information system, made up of multiple electronic and paper-based systems containing different parts of a patient’s record. It can be difficult for hospital staff, doctors and other healthcare providers to pull together full patient records with the current system.
Using the Epic MyChart app, patients will also be able to read discharge summaries and consultation notes as well as an after-visit summary document which notes medication changes, orders placed during their hospital visit and any instructions or education provided during their visit.
Patients can share records with their doctors and caregivers, enter their own health information within a secure personal health record space, access health education materials and securely communicate with healthcare providers.
Other features include virtual visits through video conferencing and the ability to upload pictures of, for example, a rash or wound, to help with assessing and monitoring care.
Additional feature of HHS’s Epic MyChart app:

eCheck-in: This allows patients to update information such as an address or contact info, medications, allergies, health coverage, and complete questionnaires prior to their HHS appointment. The purpose is to shorten the length of time a patient is at registration.

Video Visits: Scheduled video visits with doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals already take place across HHS – MyChart will make it even easier, with all the info and access in one place, no other online tools required.

Notes and Results: Patients can view test results and medical notes from their healthcare team. See your medications, test results, lab results and medical notes. Test and lab results include CT scans, MRIs, x-rays, ultrasounds, echocardiograms, pathology results and lab results such as blood work and COVID testing.

Questionnaires: Patients can complete questionnaires within MyChart. These questionnaires could be attached to eCheck-in for certain visits or sent in messages from the care team to patients.

Patient-Entered Flowsheets: With these forms, patients can enter medical data, like a blood pressure or blood sugar. The data can be trended over time and can be included in their chart. Abnormal readings can also trigger a message to the healthcare provider to follow-up with the patient.

Billing Summary and Details: Patients can pay outstanding balances via MyChart and see details of previously paid bills.

Also available for patients of some clinics:

Direct Scheduling: This allows certain clinic patients to schedule appointments with a healthcare provider they already have a relationship with.

Appointment Requests: Certain clinic patients can send appointment request messages to healthcare providers they already have an existing relationship with. They can explain why they want an appointment and their preferred availability.

Direct Messaging: This lets certain clinic patients send messages to their healthcare providers regarding their medical care or test results. Patients must already have a pre-existing relationship with the person they are messaging in order to reach out this way. Patients will also be able to message about issues not directly related to their medical issue such as billing queries, compliments, complaints and web issues.

With Epic, healthcare providers will understand where a patient has been, and where they’re going in their care journey.
HHS’ current hospital information system is comprised of multiple systems, all containing different parts of a patient’s record. One of the biggest advantages of Epic is its promise of “one patient, one record”, which means that, no matter where a patient is in the hospital, staff and providers will be able to view their full medical history in one unified system. Patients will also be able to update parts of their health record on their own (like medications and allergies) using an app called MyChart.
With Epic, patients won’t have to worry about remembering every detail of their medical history, and providers and staff will be able to make more informed decisions about their care. Using one system across HHS will also dramatically reduce the amount of time providers and staff spend searching for information, enabling them to spend more time listening to patients’ concerns and providing care.
In addition to centralizing most patient records, a major benefit to clinicians seeking information about their patients, the Epic solution will also provide other advantages for healthcare professionals:
Medical professionals are notorious for having hard-to-read handwriting, which can infrequently lead to misunderstandings and errors. For example, misreading a note in a patient’s chart might lead to a wrong dosage of medication.
With Epic, staff and providers will use mobile phones, tables and workstations-on-wheels to update patient information electronically, significantly reducing the chance for errors and patient harm.
A challenge for many patients occurs when they leave the hospital and return to their primary care physician or another external health care provider for care. External providers often need access to a patient’s record to continue providing care, and requesting this information from the hospital can cause unnecessary delays or put pressure on the patient to keep track of everything on their own.
An application called EpicCare Link will make it possible for select external organizations to securely access a patient’s chart, schedule appointments, place orders, communicate with the patient’s hospital care team, and more. This will enable better communication and more effective collaboration between care teams within and outside HHS, improving the patient experience overall.
Over the course of the pandemic, virtual care – including medical appointments by phone or video conferencing – increased by 1,500 per cent at HHS, and it’s unlikely that demand will decrease in the future. Virtual care offers a convenient, accessible alternative for appointments that do not require patients to visit the hospital, and it will be part of HHS’ Epic system.
Staying connected to patients using Epic’s virtual care tools has been shown to reduce unplanned emergency department visits and admissions because providers and staff can proactively monitor patients’ symptoms, medications and progress remotely, and check in using secure messaging and video calls. Post go-live, HHS will explore additional features within MyChart that patients can use to send messages and photos to their care team when they have questions or concerns.
Work is well underway to transform HHS into an Epic hospital in June 2022, and providers, staff and patients all have a role to play. Stay up to date by visiting the Project Odyssey page of HHS.

Saturday, July 17, 2021

Tsa Lung Trul Khor, Yantra Yoga and Qigong — supercharging Buddhist meditation (7 videos)

Learning from online resources like Youtube at anytime, not just in the age of Covid is huge. But can we also trust the source and do we really know what we are doing when we follow practices like that? Can we learn traditional meditation practices only by virtual prescence? This website - Buddha Weekly - has some excellent video instructions for learning and practicing QiGong. These are great exercises for all ages, but I think especially for the elderly who may have mobility issues or who would beneift from some of these "balancing exercises". There are 7 videos with various styles of QiGong instructions. Tsa Lung Trul Khor, Yantra Yoga and Qigong — supercharging Buddhist meditation (7 videos)

11 Year Old Boy Graduates University in Physics Plans Research on Immortality

An eleven year old boy, Laurent Simons, graduated with a degree in physics and plans out a way to create human immortality by replacing body parts with mechanical parts. I don't know how he gets there with a knowledge base in quantum physics, but anyway, kudoos for him for trying to dream big! https://www.newsweek.com/laurent-simons-11-second-youngest-graduate-ever-plans-make-humans-immortal-1607168 "This is the first puzzle piece in my goal of replacing body parts with mechanical parts," Simons said. "Immortality, that is my goal. I want to be able to replace as many body parts as possible with mechanical parts. I've mapped out a path to get there. You can see it as a big puzzle. Quantum physics—the study of the smallest particles—is the first piece of the puzzle," he said. "Two things are important in such a study: acquiring knowledge and applying that knowledge. To achieve the second, I want to work with the best professors in the world, look inside their brains and find out how they think," Simons added.

Home Epley Maneuver: Ear Crystal Vertigo from Youtube Instructions

Have you ever woken up in a state of vertigo when you rise from the bed - the room spinning around so much you have to stay lying down? You start to wonder what you ate the previous night. Well, it could just be crystals in the ear moving out of their proper channels that signal sensitive areas of the ear which results in the spinning sensation. What to do?

How can we trust all the information we search for on the internet, especially health information so vital for the state of our well being. We often enact this advise without professional medical advice. But if the information we find comes from health professions.

In the case of ear crystals, here are several instructions posted by medical professionals for maneouvers you can do to try and correct the ear crystal vertigo problem. The formal name for the instructions is the Epley manouever,

The instructor....

Dr. Danielle Tolman, PT takes the time to show you how to perform an Epley Maneuver at home to treat Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (or displaced crystals in the inner ear that causes positional dizziness). Additionally, she shows you how to determine which side (left or right) is the side with the displaced crystals and provides you with tips to ensure your maneuver has the best chance for success.

NOTE: It is recommended that if you have vertigo, that you first see a healthcare professional or vestibular specialist to determine the right course of treatment for you. The Epley maneuver is primarily used to treat a specific form of positional vertigo. There are many other causes of vertigo, as well as many different types of treatment.

You can find a vestibular therapist close to you by visiting www.Vestibular.org and using their Provider Directory. Be sure to check out the Vestibular Disorders Association (VEDA) for additional information and resources.

Also recommended are physiotherapists like on the healingvertigo.com website. Sometimes headaches and room spinning are caused by vestibular migraine!

http://www.healingvertigo.ca/