by medicaltechont | Jan 2, 2016 | Healthcare, Technology
What do you do when you love your job, but it’s killing you?
That’s an easy question if it’s asked by someone else. It’s a hard question when you’re asking it of yourself. As a physician, I give advice to people all the time — other people. If you have diabetes, control your diet. If you are obese, then lose weight and exercise. If you have COPD, then you better not continue smoking. Common problems. Obvious solutions.
What if burnout is your problem? When your cell phone rings, you get tachycardia wondering what catastrophe awaits you. You work 80 hour weeks and have no time to recuperate between catastrophes. When you’re not working, your mind is still there, wondering what you could have done differently; feeling responsible for any bad outcome; feeling thankful and lucky (more relieved than proud) of any good ones. Even when you’re not at work, your mind is.
Read more at KevinMD.
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2016/01/surgeon-loves-job-killing.html
by medicaltechont | Nov 14, 2015 | Canada, e-Health, OHIP Billing, private clinics
The dispute between Ontario doctors and the province over billing rates is threatening access to methadone treatment, with two private Toronto clinics closing their doors and patients in some rural communities facing an uncertain future.
The threat to service follows a 1.3-per-cent rate reduction imposed by the province last month on all fee-for-service billings. The money-saving measures also included targeted reductions, among them a 50-per-cent cut to rates paid to doctors for urine tests that are done once a week or more frequently as part of methadone therapy used to treat heroin and other opioid addictions.
Now at least one Toronto doctor says the fee cut amounts to roughly 25 per cent of his total revenue and means his smaller clinics are losing money. First Nations leaders also are warning access in rural and Northern communities is in danger because private clinics – where most methadone treatment is given – are not as financially attractive. Others say this latest battle over money points to deeper problems with how methadone treatment is delivered in Ontario that go beyond the current billing battle.
Click here to read more.
by medicaltechont | Oct 3, 2015 | eHealth
This is a great article on the real cost of EMR in Ontario!
How much does is cost to care for a baby, pregnant woman, diabetic, heart disease patient, or provide primary care among the myriad of other services offered by your family doctor? According to the Ontario Government, too much. According to you and me?
I am not about to rehash the many exemplary articles and blog posts that have so eloquently outlined the issues (see attached PDF). My focus is to ask you a single question: Are you getting value for what is spent on primary care health teams?
Read more: http://policyoptions.irpp.org/2015/09/26/the-real-cost-of-primary-care-in-ontario-a-fraction-of-the-cost-of-a-gym-membership/
by medicaltechont | Feb 19, 2015 | EHR, Hospitals
Scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Technische Universität München have succeeded in a breakthrough for the further development of contrast agents and consequently improved diagnostics with imaging using MRI procedures. The results have been published in the “Angewandte Chemie International Edition” journal.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) offers a high-resolution procedure for the diagnostic imaging of patients. Often this procedure additionally uses contrast agents that clarify certain tissue structures and pathological processes. However the image signal that is generated in the MRI does not correlate with the actual quantitative concentration of contrast agent in the tissue.
Click here to read more.
by medicaltechont | Feb 7, 2015 | Canada, Healthcare, Hospitals, private clinics
The Supreme Court of Canada decision Friday to allow people with “grievous and irremediable medical conditions” to ask for doctor-assisted suicide should be just the start of a national conversation about end-of-life care in the country, doctors say.
“The Supreme Court has lit a fire under us,” Dr. James Downar, Co-Chair of the Physicians Advisory Council for Dying with Dignity, said in an interview.
“It’s time to talk, we can’t put it off any more.”
http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/health/doctor-assisted-death-physicians-want-more-palliative-care-as-well-1.2948265
The dispute between Ontario doctors and the province over billing rates is threatening access to methadone treatment, with two private Toronto clinics closing their doors and patients in some rural communities facing an uncertain future.
