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Study: Teeth whitening products may do more harm than good
Tammy Hinojos Oral & Dental HealthcareHome teeth whitening kits are a popular and easy way to brighten your smile. You can buy a variety of teeth whitening strips at the grocery store and you can get more potent, faster-working formulations from your dentist. You place the strips over your teeth and leave them in place for a few hours. A few days or weeks later? Voila! Brighter, whiter choppers. Americans spend more than a billion dollars a year on these teeth whitening products. But a new study shows that while these products do whiten teeth, they may also be damaging them.
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Alexa went to school, and now she’s HIPAA-compliant
Tammy Hinojos Oral & Dental Healthcare"Alexa, ask my dentist if my prescription is ready." No, really. You can do that now. Amazon announced on April 4 that its Alexa Skills Kit now enables select covered entities subject to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations to build Alexa skills that allow it to transmit and receive protected health information as part of an invite-only program. Cool. But what does that actually mean? It means soon you could be using your Alexa for more than weather and traffic updates and turning on music.
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Negativity: The mortal enemy of teamwork in healthcare
Keith Carlson Medical & Allied HealthcareTeamwork in healthcare holds a place of the utmost importance when it comes to cooperation and the positive outcomes that both patients and providers desire to achieve. Collaboration and positivity need to be two of our highest-valued attributes in healthcare, and when negativity rears its ugly head on a consistent basis in any particular medical workplace setting, we see the mortal enemy of teamwork in action. Anyone can understandably have a bad moment or a bad day; however, when a bad day becomes a bad week, month, or year, that's another story entirely.
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Are e-consults right for your practice?
Lisa Mulcahy Healthcare AdministrationStudies show that referring a patient to a specialist can often be a stressful and time-consuming enterprise for a primary care physician. Not only does that PCP have to identify the correct doctor to refer to, he or she must then, in many cases, set up a meeting to discuss the patient's case. What's the latest high-tech solution to save this kind of effort and energy? Electronic consultations, often called e-consults or e-referrals. The process works this way: a PCP who needs to ask a specialist about a specific patient's care — such as a symptom that needs to be discussed — emails a specialist. Then, the PCP and specialist discuss the patient's situation through messages.
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Sleep disorders on the rise in the US; World Dental Congress responds
Tammy Hinojos Oral & Dental HealthcareSleep apnea, a potentially serious sleep disorder, is defined by breathing that repeatedly stops and starts during sleep. With the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine estimating that about 30 million adults in the U.S. have obstructive sleep apnea (the most common type), this September’s American Dental Association’s FDI World Dental Congress will shine a spotlight on what presenters are calling a hot topic.The ADA Dental Sleep Medicine Conference, in partnership with the ADA Council on Dental Practice, will be held Sept. 4-5, with 14 hours of continuing education credit offered.
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Diversity in dentistry on the rise
Tammy Hinojos Oral & Dental HealthcareThink about your dentist when you were a child. Can you remember? If you can, I’d be willing to bet your dentist was a man. Am I right? According to the ADA Health Policy Institute (HPI), 49 percent of U.S. dental school graduates in 2017 were women. That's up from 37 percent in 1997. Forty years ago, only 7 percent of graduates were women. "The increase in diversity in our profession is fantastic," said Dr. Jennifer Enos, Arizona Dental Association president-elect. "It allows many opportunities for growth and innovation with the varying backgrounds and perspectives."
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Tips to help your staff prevent patient data breaches
Lisa Mulcahy Healthcare AdministrationAs a healthcare administrator, you know how important it is to reduce any risk of a patient health information (PHI) data breach. Yet, breaches continue to be a vexing and dangerous problem. A study from Michigan State University found that about 1,800 large data breaches over the course of seven years had to do with lax hospital policies putting information at risk. How can you best assist your staff and your IT to secure the data at your organization? Let the research-based advice in this article be your guide.
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When should the commercial lease end?
Dale Willerton and Jeff Grandfield RetailChoosing a commencement date for your commercial lease can be easy enough; however, stating a specific expiration date may be more difficult. That's fair enough, as it is impossible to forecast what the future will hold. Will you be successful at your chosen location? Will an anchor store in the commercial property move out and leave you needing to relocate? Will your own health affect your business operations and result in your selling your business? The short answer is for you to choose your lease term's expiration date based on what's best for you and your business.
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Growing the muscles of communication in healthcare
Keith Carlson Medical & Allied HealthcareIn most every aspect of healthcare, communication is key to positive patient outcomes, stellar teamwork, and the seamless operation of organizations and facilities of every size and type. A Tower of Babel scenario in a healthcare-related circumstance is never acceptable. How, why, and when we grow our individual and collective muscles of discourse and conversation are of utmost importance. If you, your colleagues, your leaders, or your employing institution itself are lacking in this regard, it's not too late to change that calculus for the better.
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Dementia risk linked to severe gum disease
Tammy Hinojos Oral & Dental HealthcareCould taking great care of your teeth and gums throughout your lifetime also help protect your brain as you age? A new study published in The American Geriatrics Society seems to think so. The extensive study performed by investigators from Seoul National University in South Korea has added to growing evidence of a link between severe gum disease, or periodontitis, and a raised risk of dementia.
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