Over the past several years there has been great attention focused on health care practitioners and their hand washing – or lack there of. Recently, one institution has gone so far as to install cameras in their ICU and in real time monitor handwashing behavior. A little extreme but, I guess, if the staff is [...]
Browsing Posts in Anaphylaxis
I came across this article (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/in-medicine-falling-for-fake-innovation/?ref=health ) written by one of the faculty at UPenn. In this article he discusses how a new technology, the daVinci Surgical Robot system, while an innovative and cutting edge technology, has increased heatlhcare costs but does not seem to have a corresponding significant improvement in patient care or reduction [...]
I was talking with a colleague the other day about developing an allergy/anaphylaxis education program for a local school district. As these conversations go,we talked about the various aspects of allergy care and how the goal of such a program would be to try and make everyone in a school as comfortable as possible in [...]
I recently became aware of some information that may provide improper advice for those with food allergies. This information suggests that food allergic individuals need not be as vigilant as they should be as long as they have their injectable epinephrine with them. Well, this is just plain wrong! Let’s review some basics about [...]
Pork – Cat Syndrome Below is a summary of a presentation on Pork – Cat Syndrome by Jonathon Posthumus, MD, an allergy fellow at the University of Virginia, presented at the 51st Annual Swineford Meeting held at the University of Virginia April 2012. Pork – cat syndrome was first reported in France, by Drouet [...]
I was at a meeting the other day and was listening to a report about the performance of a hospital. All these metrics were being measured and we, the physicians, were being told about how good we were doing meeting the various metrics but there was still work to do. Now, one would [...]
I just got done reading an article from Omaha about a child who had a severe reaction to peanuts (http://www.ketv.com/news/30307603/detail.html#ixzz1kcSdIHui). The headline “Boys survives Delayed Reaction to Peanut” piqued my interest. I was expecting a story about a patient who had a reaction 4 or more hours after ingesting peanut. This was not the case. [...]
The other day a physician colleague of mine asked me a question about a patient. The patient, who had already been seen by another Allergist, was referred to another physician ( “the consultant”) for evaluation. The consultant was in the same healthcare system as my colleague but the Allergist was not. In evaluating the patient [...]
Over the past few months, there have been hearing increased conversations about the high cost of copays for office visits. It is not unusual to see co pays for office visits to be in the $40 – $50 range. This is certainly having an impact on patients seeking care. Patients are clearly not heeding the [...]
Over the past several weeks, we have received numerous inquiries about using epinephrine in patients with anaphylaxis. Specifically, our orders on our Anaphylaxis Treatment Plan, have been called into question. I think we need to take a few moments to reinforce what we have come to learn over the past several years regarding the treatment [...]
