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Alone, but not lonely: The rejuvenating benefits of solitude
Victoria Fann Mental HealthcareWhile loneliness is an epidemic in this country with half of Americans admitting they feel lonely, being alone isn’t all bad. In fact, it’s good. I’m not talking about extreme isolation here, which can severely impact mental and physical health. Instead, I’m talking about good, old-fashioned quiet time. However, with smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, computers, and most recently AI, are we ever really alone? A new field of study called interruption science, which studies how interruptions affect human performance, found that, on average, we are interrupted every 11 minutes and that it takes almost 25 minutes to recover from a phone call.
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Study: 3 in 10 toddlers spending less than 3 hours outside per week
Jackie Cambridge Medical & Allied HealthcareA recent study by Kiddi Caru asked U.K. parents about the amount of outdoor time their child gets, weather permitting. 31% said they get three hours or less weekly outdoor time, in spite of 100% of respondents agreeing that outdoor time is crucial to a child’s development. This is surprisingly little, considering the same percentage (31%) get two to three hours of screen time per day, with 11% getting over four hours daily.
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8 great ways wine may make you healthier
Lisa Mulcahy Medical & Allied HealthcareYou probably didn’t need any more reasons to have a glass of wine after work. However, your favorite beverage can help make you healthier than ever! Read on for eight ways research has shown wine to be beneficial to the human body.
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New hospital quality and safety ratings released, show improvements from…
Christina Thielst Healthcare AdministrationThe Leapfrog Group, which represents employers and other purchasers of healthcare services, has released its new spring 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades. Overall, there has been a significant improvement in 2019 (160,000) from its 2016 estimate (205,000) of lives lost from avoidable medical errors. Through its affiliation with the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, it has also updated its estimate of deaths due to errors, accidents, injuries and infections at hospitals. Like other hospital rating systems, the grades can be viewed as triggers for asking questions for more informed patients.
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New study: Rural telehealth capabilities are lagging
Scott E. Rupp Medical & Allied HealthcareTelemedicine is frequently touted as a technology tool that can help improve healthcare access for rural populations, especially in areas with physician shortages. But telemedicine might not be the silver bullet to improve rural healthcare when those same areas have significant infrastructure challenges, new research says. Telemedicine may have trouble even getting implemented in these locales because of "substantially lower broadband penetration rates," a research report published in Annals of Internal Medicine found.
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Long ER waits in California prompt patients to leave against medical advice
Chelsea Adams Medical & Allied HealthcareThe number of patients leaving California emergency departments against medical advice (AMA) has increased by 57% since 2012. Not all the patients who left after seeing a doctor but before treatment had been rendered can be attributed to long wait times, but hospital administrators say most are due to overcrowded EDs. "Most patients are sick but not critically ill," said Dr. Steven Polevoi, medical director of the ED at UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights. "Emergency care doesn’t equal fast care all of the time."
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‘PEACE’ and ‘LOVE’ replace outdated soft tissue…
Heidi Dawson Sports & FitnessWhen it comes to soft tissue injury treatment, you have most likely have heard of RICE; standing for rest, ice, compression, and elevation. You may well have also heard of PRICE, where the additional P stands for protection. This was then updated to POLICE around 2012, replacing rest with optimal loading, alongside protection and the longstanding ice, compression and elevation. But two new acronyms are doing the rounds, proposed last month on the British Journal of Sports Medicine’s blog.
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Podcast: Creating online communities to grow your cash-based practice
Jarod Carter Medical & Allied HealthcareWhen I first interviewed Sarah King of Invigorate Physical Therapy, I was extremely impressed by her knowledge of marketing tools and strategies, considering how recently she had opened her cash-based practice. In this episode, I catch up with Sarah about some new additions to her marketing repertoire. Sarah has developed both an offline PT business and an online business serving people with Parkinson’s and we discuss all the details of how she’s done it … including her strategies for how to build a large Facebook Live audience of current and prospective clients.
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Business group believes Medicare for All healthcare is best
Seth Sandronsky Medical & Allied HealthcareSmall- and midsize-business owners do not like the current healthcare system. Just ask Dylan Dusseault, executive director of the Business Initiative for Health Policy (BIHP), in Washington, D.C. "Business owners want out of providing healthcare," he said via email to MultiBriefs. "The employer-sponsored system isn't working for them or their workers, but they're all being held hostage by rising premiums and out-of-pocket costs. BIHP was created to advocate for what business owners actually need: A Medicare for All healthcare system."
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New study: Exercise improves memory in heart failure patients
Dorothy L. Tengler Medical & Allied HealthcareAbout 5.7 million adults in the United States have heart failure (HF). One in nine deaths in 2009 included HF as contributing cause, and about half of those who develop HF die within five years of diagnosis. HF is associated with frequent hospital admissions, reduced quality of life, significant morbidity, and increased mortality. Cognitive impairment is a common adverse consequence of HF and is characterized by deficits in one or more cognition domains, including attention, memory, executive function, and psychomotor speed.
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