Category: Quality Control (Page 23 of 74)

      Antibiotics May Be An Effective Treatment For Appendicitis

      April 9, 2012 /

      Antibiotics may be enough to treat appendicitis.

      Surgery has traditionally been the only way to treat appendicitis, however, treatment with antibiotics has been found to be effective in about fifty percent of cases.

      This is great news from a cost control perspective.

      Also, use of antibiotics reduces the risk of surgery and infections spread in hospitals.

      Researchers from the Nottingham Digestive Diseaeses Centre NIHR Biomedical Research Unit report that patients with uncomplicated appendicitis may be safely and effectively treated initially with standard antibiotics. Using antibiotics also significantly reduces the risk of complications and death, compared with surgery, the researchers found. For complicated cases, however — those involving perforated appendixes, for example — still need surgical removal.

      Quality Control, Research

      Doctors Recognize The Need To Test Less

      April 4, 2012 /

      Doctors urge their colleagues to perform less tests.

      When you consider that the majority of insurance dollars are spent in the last 6 months of a patient’s life we have to consider if this is money well spent.

      This goes for testing, as well.

      The Choosing Wisely project was launched last year by the foundation of the American Board of Internal Medicine. It recruited nine medical specialty societies representing more than 376,000 physicians to come up with five common tests or procedures “whose necessity … should be questioned and discussed.”

      The groups represent family physicians, cardiologists, radiologists, gastroenterologists, oncologists, kidney specialists and specialists in allergy, asthma and immunology and nuclear cardiology.

      Doctors, Health Care Policy, Health Insurance, Hospitals, Quality Control, Research, Resources, Wellness

      Obesity In The U.S. Is Worse Than We Thought

      April 3, 2012 /

      Health officials now believe that we have underestimated the rates in obesity in the U.S.

      The BMI (Body Mass Index), commonly used to measure obesity, gives an incomplete picture of a person’s physical condition.

      BMI, the researchers say, is an overly simplistic measure that often misrepresents physical fitness and overall health, especially among older women. Nearly 4 in 10 adults whose BMI places them in the overweight category would be considered obese if their body fat percentage were taken into account, according to the study.
      “Some people call it the ‘baloney mass index,'” says lead author Eric Braverman, M.D., president of the Path Foundation, a nonprofit organization in New York City dedicated to brain research.
      Bodybuilders can be classified as obese based on their BMI, he says, while “a 55-year-old woman who looks great in a dress could have very little muscle and mostly body fat, and a whole lot of health risks because of that — but still have a normal BMI.”

      Quality Control, Research, Wellness

      Breast Cancer Over-Diagnosis From Too Many Mammograms

      April 3, 2012 /

      The potential for over-diagnosis and over-treatment from too many mammograms too early has become the subject of a recent study.

      The Norwegian Study included nearly 40,000 women with invasive breast cancer.

      The study allowed the researchers to compare the rate of breast cancers diagnosed through mammograms and those found because a tumor was palpable or produced symptoms.

      Norway has data on virtually all women who get a diagnosis of breast cancer.

      The researchers concluded that 15 percent to 25 percent of breast cancers were overdiagnosed — meaning 6 to 10 women were overdiagnosed for every 2,500 offered screening mammograms.

      – Dr. Joanne Elmore of the University of Washington and Dr. Suzanne Fletcher of Harvard, in an editorial
      Under current practice, those women get biopsies and treatment for breast cancers that would never have been detected otherwise. Either the cancers would have grown very slowly or not at all and never caused symptoms, or women would have died from something else before their breast cancer was diagnosed.

      Health Care Policy, Quality Control, Research, Wellness

      More Intensity And Less Time To Improve Your Workout

      April 1, 2012 /

      Short amounts of vigorous exercise trump longer amounts of moderate exercise for health benefits.

      Researchers found that the people who engaged in the most vigorous exercise reduced their risk of developing metabolic syndrome by two-thirds, compared with those who did no vigorous exercise, even when the total amount of calories per pound of body weight the participants burned while exercising was the same. Vigorous exercise includes activities such as running and jumping rope; moderate exercise might consist of walking or going for a leisurely bike ride.

      The good news is that you can exercise less time and still reap the benefits of your work out as long as you kick up the intensity.

      This is useful information for those who have busy schedules and little time to devote to physical activity.

      Quality Control, Research, Wellness

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