Blog
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Telemedicine is Good Medicine Historically medicine required a patient to visit a doctor to share their problem and be examined. After the examination, the physician makes a diagnosis and treatment is administered. The downside to this, especially in developing countries like Africa, is that many people do not have access to a physician, or have […]
I practiced Telemedicine with my mother every week when she was alive. We did this on Facetime and it allowed me to catch up with her, see how she was getting on in her home environment. Medicine is practiced the same in countries across the world let alone across state lines. I wish my mother […]
As a physician, it likely won’t (or shouldn’t!) surprise you to hear that my first and foremost focus has, and always will be, on the patient. Whether it be as a practicing physician where I saw patients daily, to numerous opportunities working in both healthcare and computing with consulting firms and technology companies – […]
Is the iPhoneX and overpriced luxury or does it represent fantastic value when you consider the features and functions it delivers and the opportunity to improve your health? Seeing a mobile device as a phone is much like the perception that the Apple Watch is a watch – it’s really not. They selected that form factor and […]
Many patients have underlying issues with their health. Oftentimes, these issues can be identified by certain markers, like a patient’s speech pattern, gait or by looking at vital signs including blood pressure, heart rate, and weight. To an untrained eye, it might be unnoticeable, but physicians are trained to look for these patterns as […]
Incremental Interoperability Can you imagine a sports team that was unable to share? Sharing is Caring and can only be done with open and easy access that includes the clinical team, patients, and their family. Translational Medicine Conference I recently attended the innovative 8th Annual Translational Medicine Conference this past week in Derry/Londonderry Northern Ireland […]
Drug Prices Contribute to Failure of Treatment There’s no escaping the significant increase in drug prices and the apparent disproportionately high prices we pay in the United States when compared to other countries. And then there are the huge price hikes for old drugs like Daraprim by Martin Shkreli and the EpiPen debacle spearheaded by Heather Bresch […]
Changing Your Health with Wearables There are probably very few people around who remember the old stores and how they used to work. Stores where you walked in and someone behind a counter would fetch items at your behest. Perhaps you’ve seen the concept in Little House on the Prairie or perhaps you have […]
The last remnants of summer continue to permeate our lives but coming to a close and as they say in Game of Thrones “Winter is coming”. It might be hard to think about the flu season but now is a great time to think about preventing flu for you and your family members. Each year […]
Total Solar Eclipse This week was special for this self-confessed geek and space nut – witnessing first hand a total solar eclipse. A trip that I had thankfully planned over a year ago. THe hotel we were in was booked out months before the event, flights prices were high and the roads and skies were packed […]
Rethinking Wellness in the Wearable Age This past week I had the privilege of joining ~30 or so people from around the country in Los Angeles to hear about the work Aetna and Apple have been doing as part of their partnership announced last Fall (Aetna to Transform Members’ Consumer Health Experience Using iPhone, iPad and […]
Predicting the Future Are you struggling to predict the future and where the world is going? There are plenty of futurists who offer their vision of where the world is going but as Freakonomics pointed out some time ago – these predictions are typically not held to account so our capacity to assess the accuracy of these predictions […]
The Desire to Help and Security We are programmed with a desire to help others in need but this trait is one of the reasons that hackers are so successful infiltrating our networks as I mentioned in this post. This past week the Black Hat conference took place followed by DefCon (in its 25th year) […]
Healthcare and Travel A recent trip to the Emerald Isles to visit family and friends found us in another country and short on medication. The discovery came late on Saturday evening which could have meant another 36 hours before we could speak to a clinician during normal working hours, obtain a replacement prescription and fill […]
Music with a Message I was lucky to have the opportunity to attend U2 Joshua Tree concert recently – it was a great spectacle, a big trip down memory lane 30 years on from the release of that album and a lot of fun. Aside from the ringing ears I really enjoyed the experience. It […]
Security is a Worldwide Problem The recent rash of ransomware and hacking attacks have highlighted once again the highly exposed nature of our information systems and the challenge of securing these systems. In May of 2017 Wannacry trojan encryptor malware was unleashed and spread rapidly bringing many hospitals in the National Health Service (NHS) to a standstill. It […]
Hurry up and Implement Innovation has had a tendency to move at glacial pace and history is littered with scientific discoveries that took a long time to reach our world and have an impact on our lives. So many areas in our lives – math and complex numbers discovered in the 16th Century that were originally […]
I recently discovered that one of the great storytellers of our day – Malcolm Gladwell has a new podcast – Revisionist History. Each episode (he is now into Season 2) takes a look at some piece of history and through some delightful storytelling revisits the history and our perceptions of events. It reminded me of this […]
Delivering Outstanding Service I had a frustrating experience with a bank this week that had so many opportunities for correction and improvement. The short version was a requirement to follow a policy that no one could explain requiring additional steps necessary because the bank had taken so long to follow their process. At various points, the […]
Working from Home Americans are doing more and more activities from the comfort of their home and its no surprise – the frustration of showing up to a business only to find they are closed or worse short-staffed and instead of dealing with the customer in front of them the staff are on the phone […]
Mental Labels Just the term “Mental” induces reactions and responses from every corner of our society, and mostly they are not positive. Perhaps part of the problem can be attributed to the broad and different definitions applied to the term that includes its use as an adjective relating to the mind or disorders of the mind but […]
Medical Education Costs I posted an article this past week featuring an article from CBS Moneywatch in 2013: $1 million mistake: Becoming a doctor that generated a few comments including comments about clinician burn out domestically and internationally and some questions about the current status and if this was getting worse or better. Other Countries It would seem […]
The Great Healthcare Debate Healthcare is personal and front and center in our minds not just because we all intersect with it in some way but it employs 1 in 9 people in the United States. With the current state of our media and political system with polarized debates, he said she said talking heads […]
It’s the artificial holiday that celebrates the play on words from Star Wars movies – a rallying cry The list of suggested actions from the Starwars site may not be to everyone’s taste and includes everything from Holding movie marathons Dress up as a Star Wars Character Star wars food including blue milk! Getting a Star Wars […]
Malaria World Malaria day is today – Tuesday, April 25, 2017. Recognizing global efforts to control and perhaps one day eradicate this major killer that disproportionately affects my home country of Africa. The WHO African Region continues to shoulder the heaviest malaria burden, accounting for an estimated 90% of malaria cases and 92% of malaria […]
