Welcome to zrana.org!
Zulfiqar Rana, MD, MPH
Board Certified in Internal Medicine
Which Is Better: Vitamin D2 or D3?
Posted by on July 29, 2011
A nice article on medscape in case you are confused.
PatientKeeper on ACO draft
Posted by on June 20, 2011
PatientKeeper CEO Paul Brient comments on the ACO draft regulations and discusses the interaction between ACO activities and Meaningful Use requirements for health information technology…
http://www.patientkeeper.com/news_events/newsitem.html?id=415
Hospitals to patients: Go away and don’t come back soon
Posted by on June 8, 2011
The Wall Street Journal has a good summary of the situation in Don’t Come Back, Hospitals Say. Among the programs featured:
- An animated “virtual discharge advocate” named Louise who helps explain home care to departing patients
- Transition coaches who call patients 2 or 3 days after discharge
- Project RED (for Re-Engineered Discharge), which provides individualized instruction starting well before the patient leaves the hospital
Early results suggest these approaches can reduce readmissions by 20 to 30 percent, which is a shockingly high figure considering how basic such steps are…
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HealthBusinessBlog/~3/OY7mg_8jepE/
The Weekend Effect
Posted by on June 8, 2011
These physicians, who treat patients outside the emergency room, are seeking to reverse the “weekend effect,” or higher rates of death and complications.
http://feeds.kaiserhealthnews.org/~r/khn/~3/IH_NyyyY59M/nocturnist.aspx
Soaring Health Costs Pinned On Medical Devices
Posted by on June 8, 2011
The latest devices – from heart valves and defibrillators to artificial knees and hips – are usually significantly more expensive than older devices, and the intense marketing surrounding the introduction of new devices has become a major driver of rising health care costs.
http://feeds.kaiserhealthnews.org/~r/khn/~3/bengTWZgcL8/medical-device-costs-fiscal-times.aspx
Study: Many Employers Will Cut Back On Health Plans
Posted by on June 8, 2011
A report by McKinsey & Co. concluded that at least 30 percent of employers will stop offering health insurance in 2014. The projection is based on a survey of more than 1,300 businesses of various sizes and industries.
http://feeds.kaiserhealthnews.org/~r/khn/~3/ELLNvDgpO-g/mckinsey-employer-study.aspx
AP MOBILE: Study: Link of virus chronic fatigue false alarm
Posted by on June 2, 2011
Freedom’s Just Another Word for Restriction?
Posted by on May 14, 2011
What tools does a university administration have at its disposal to shut up critics on its own faculty? The University of Minnesota wants to know.
The university’s administration is exploring this question because its own Carl Elliott won’t shut up about the Markingson case. Elliott, a professor in the Center for Bioethics, just keeps talking about what went wrong at his medical school in a 2003 industry-sponsored drug trial in which research subject Dan Markingson killed himself. Since publication of a muckraking article on the subject in Mother Jones, Elliott has criticized the FDA’s response to the case and led a group of faculty in asking the University Trustees to look into the case.
Like many others who continue to follow this story, Elliott is drawn to this case by issues of justice both local and global. Locally, he seeks accountability for what happened to Dan Markingson and to his mother, who tried repeatedly before Dan’s gruesome suicide to convince involved clinicians that study participation went against Dan’s best interests…
http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=5340&blogid=140
