   | Dr. Mike Magee's BLOG | Recent Health Commentary Postings | |
| | | May 17, 2008 | Aging | | Will there be enough caregivers for our aging population? | By Judith A. Salerno, MD The long-expected upsurge in the number of older Americans is almost here. The first baby boomers will turn 65 in 2011. By 2030, there will be more than 70 million adults over 65, nearly double the number today. Oftentimes, older age requires more frequent and regular health care; those over 65 today use a greater percentage of health care services than other segments of the population. In the next two decades, with numbers increasing so that approximately 20 percent of Americans are over 65, their use of health care services—and the national Medicare bill—will grow. | | |
Guest Blog | Mark J. Lema, MD
 May 16, 2008 | Health Care Reform | | Proposed bill may unintentionally harm the innocent and discourage physicians from practicing |  New York State is moving forward with a proposal that will improve patient safety by alerting the public early when doctors are charged with a misconduct or crime. Currently, the public is notified when a physician is convicted of misconduct – a process that can take six months or longer from when the charge was served. The proposed bill has a ‘mom and apple pie’ appeal. In fact, Blair Horner, a spokesperson for the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) stated that, “It signals that the Health Department is going to get tough on dangerous doctors.” | | |
Guest Blog | Paul S. Auerbach, MD
May 14, 2008 | Environmental Health | | The impact of ground-level ozone upon human health |  Here's an interesting news item that was recently brought to my attention. The content is from Reuters on April 22, 2008: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Even breathing in a little ozone at levels found in many areas is likely to kill some people prematurely, the National Research Council reported. The report recommends that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency consider ozone-related mortality in any future ozone standards, and said local health authorities should keep this in mind when advising people to stay indoors on polluted days. | | |
| Story of the Week | May 14, 2008 | | Lighting the way to home-centered health care | By Mike Magee, MD In recent years I have frequently written about and discussed the need for a "parallel build-out" in order to achieve truly preventative care in the United States. This refers to the challenge on the one hand of better managing our current burden of chronic disease in mostly older Americans, while at the same time creating a new infrastructure for prevention based on home-based, multi-generational lifespan health planning. “Care” and “planning” are the key words in this challenge. How can we make these two worlds intersect? | | |
| | May 13, 2008 | Public Health | | Staying off the road has some protective effect | By Mike Magee, MD  Once again, across America, we're experiencing shock at the gas pump. For those of us who are old enough, it recalls the days of Jimmy Carter's administration, with gas lines, and calls for conservation, and a drop in the speed limit on interstate highways to 55 miles per hour. There was also an interesting side effect at the time - a decline in major auto accidents and patient volume at the nation's major Trauma Centers. From a public health standpoint, this is a not insignificant contributor to the nation's disease burden.
| | |
Guest Blog | Mark J. Lema, MD
May 12, 2008 | Health Care Reform | | Only a new medical system that incorporates safety systems designs will assure high quality medical care | Virtually everyone faced with the prospect of undergoing anesthesia for surgery has a fear of the ‘what if’ adverse outcome. In the early 1980s, anesthetic deaths for all patients were estimated to be about 1 in 10,000 procedures! If one applies this incidence to the number of anesthetics given in the U.S. today (about 40 million), 4,000 patients would die yearly because of an anesthetic mishap (breathing tube misplacement, drug reactions, wrong drug given)! | | |
Guest Blog | Brian Klepper
May 12, 2008 | Health Care Reform | | An opinion on how the sole-source relationship between CMS and the AMA's RUC threatens Medicare's pilot on medical homes |  (Note: At Health Care Renewal, Dr. Roy Poses, a Clinical Associate Professor at Brown University's School of Medicine, writes a consistently excellent blog on health care financial conflict . Both he and I have written extensively -- a link to his most recent column is provided below; mine is here - about the obscene sole source advisory relationship that CMS maintains with the conflicted, lopsided and secretive AMA's RVS Update Committee (or RUC). | | |
| Story of the Week | May 06, 2008 | | Why in-person driver's license renewal might be a good idea | By Mike Magee, MD More than 40,000 Americans die each year in motor vehicle crashes. Many of the drivers involved in these crashes are senior citizens. Statistics show that motor vehicle fatality rates among senior drivers are on the rise, particularly for those drivers who are 85 or older. | | |
| | May 05, 2008 | Public Health | | April 4, 1968 | By Mike Magee, MD  Tomorrow is the Indiana Democratic Primary. One of the dominant themes, discussed on and off over the past few months, has been the issue of race, and the fears and emotions that come with it. In my lifetime - in my 60 years - I have seen fear before, in many shapes and forms, and seen courageous leaders address it, and help us all deal with it. One shining example occurred 40 years ago in Indianapolis.
| | |
| | May 03, 2008 | Public Health | | Another factor reinforcing the need to immunize | By Mike Magee, MD  In January, February, March and April of 2008, 64 cases of Measles have been documented in 10 states across the US, and Dr. Anne Schuchat, Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC says, "We haven't seen the end of this." The reason why? Worldwide there are 20 million cases of measles a year, and most of our cases are transmitted from overseas visitors. Our defense? Mass immunization. Our enemy? Misinformation, which causes a portion of U.S. parents to decline to immunize their children. Dr. Louis Cooper of the American Academy of Pediatrics puts it bluntly, “Not fully immunizing children is one of the most serious and potentially fatal mistakes a parent can make with a child’s health." | | |
| |
|  It's a major problem today. A lot of people who get sick are unable to afford health care."  Hard for the insured, too  Keep health care private!  Work to stay healthy  Testing is important  Please keep it affordable  Everybody deserves a chance  | Dr. Tom Linden's Health Blog | | |  'Mountains Beyond Mountains' Medical Communicators Take Center Stage Ain’t Nobody’s Fault But Mine Maternal Depression: You Can’t Judge A Book By Its Cover The State of Employer-Sponsored Coverage A Medical “Peace Corps” Comes to New York State Spending More But Getting Less Prevention Through Affordable Access Probiotics: Hope or Hype? |
 | | May, 2008 | | April, 2008 | | March, 2008 | | February, 2008 | | January, 2008 | | December, 2007 | | November, 2007 | | October, 2007 | | September, 2007 | | August, 2007 | | July, 2007 | | June, 2007 | | May, 2007 | | April, 2007 | | March, 2007 | | February, 2007 | | January, 2007 | | December, 2006 | | November, 2006 | | October, 2006 | | September, 2006 | | August, 2006 | | July, 2006 | | June, 2006 | | May, 2006 | | April, 2006 | | March, 2006 | | February, 2006 | | January, 2006 | | December, 2005 | | November, 2005 | | October, 2005 |
|
