Mother of Palin daughter's boyfriend arrested 0 comments
From hockey mom to diva, back to hockey mom in a matter of two months, for those who said things could get no worst for former GOP Vice President nominee Sarah Palin.... they have.
Last week a church that the Governor attends was burned in broad daylight and is under investigation for arson, leading the Governor to apologize to not only the priest there, but also to the congregation as a whole stating that she was sorry if the fire was due to her "undeserved negative attention."
To make matters worst according to the Associated Press today Sherry L. Johnston the mother of the guy that knocked Governor Palin's daughter up has been released on bail after being arrested Thursday, in which troopers served a search warrant on a Wasilla home....Johnston is being charged with 6 felony counts of drug poessession....
I wonder what her drug of choice is?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081219/ap_on_re_us/palin_johnston_arrest
news and politics
Uninsured Overwheleming Emergency Rooms 0 comments
A lot of people are fraying from uttering the word recession in the open these days, everything from layoffs and lost jobs to decrease spending on unnecessary, and necessary items this economic downturn has caused a lot of unhappy Christmas shoppers. This article is about the overcrowding of hospital emergency rooms with uninsured patients. Cutting back on sweaters, scarves, travel, and big screen TV’s, people are feeling the pinch, but when you have to cut back on the one thing that so many people take for granted (health care) there stands to be a problem. “I am definitely seeing patients coming in presenting worse in their illness because they are further along,” said Dr. Katherine A. Bakes, the director of the program’s emergency services for children. Although this has been an increasing pattern with the rise in health care costs, how will this same situation play out in the wake of a recession? According to Reed Abelson writer for the NY Times, emergency rooms will feel the hit the hardest. Emergency rooms which once consisted of over populated, extreme case measures such as car accidents, and stabbings, are now being transformed into your modern day family general practitioner. The sole reason for this transformation is simple; those without health insurance know legally that they cannot be denied access to health care treatment when in the emergency room, and whose too blame them, if you need medical treatment, you need medical treatment.
The hidden question in all of this is what does this mean to the quality of care received for those within the emergency room? Increase case loads, increased patient nurse ratios, less time for pertinent patient teaching, higher occurrence of misdiagnosis because of rushed fed ex delivery of care leading to a revolving door pattern not conducive for optimal health for patients seeking treatment. Not to mention that a doctor’s major concern has got to be the long waits by patients requiring a hospital bed. The doctors group, surveying its members last year, learned of at least 200 deaths related to the practice of “boarding” in which patients on stretchers line the corridors until they can be moved into a bed, this in some experts opinions including my own will lead to a destructive health care crisis if left unresolved.
There is no question in my mind that because the health care system is not closely regulated we are in the trouble we are in today, universal health care coverage will only expand this problem further due to over utilization of medical attention once it is acquired. “We have no capacity now,” states Dr. Angela F. Gardner, the president-elect of the American College of Emergency Physicians, which represents 27,000 emergency doctors. “There’s no way we have room for any more people to come to the table.” In my opinion more government funding will be needed in order for already over populated, and over burdened emergency rooms to extend, and employ more health care providers giving hospitals a higher capability to house and treat patients more effectively.“What they don’t understand,” Bakes said, “is that the system is fundamentally flawed and will fail.”
Let’s do more than just hope she is incorrect!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/09emergency.html?_r=1&ref=healthnews and politics
Straight talk is hard to come by..... 0 comments
Straight talk is hard to come by... especially when dealing with politics. No one answer can be the right answer, but the right answer cannot be the one answer. I recently invited two Bexar county political candidates that are running for election this term, one for judge, and the other for constable (whose names will remain anonymous for now) to sit down with myself and a co host, and conduct an interview regarding some social issues that citizens of the community want addressed, and resolved. I didn't think it was asking too much, all of the questions were going to be given to the candidates beforehand, and they were going to be given sufficient time to practice and rehearse their responses. Ironically, when contacted for the interview one of the candidates declined time and time again to pick up his phone, or return phone calls after numerous attempts in lieu of vibrant messages left on his voice mail, and the other who is a female must be suffering from that same set of symptoms, but maybe in a more worse condition, because at a fairly recent communications committee meeting when I extended my hand for a genuine handshake the lady candidate was reluctant to shake it, as if I had leprosy. I'm not really a political guy... don't really see myself running for political office (well maybe), but I'm like most Americans... I just want straight talk with real answers. Now if you are camera shy ok, or not so good at public speaking that's fine, even if a person is absolutely clueless about a plan to change, alter, and fix a broken issue that lies deep in a community chanting to be addressed, these are all understandable concerns of why a person wouldn't want to put themselves out there in the spot light like that, (although Sarah Palin did a tremendous job in proving this theory absolutely wrong) but if the reason is that you are plainly trying to beat around the bush until election time comes up hoping the American PEOPLE will simply forget about their concerns, and just go out and vote, in my opinion one is sadly mistaken. It’s about more than attending the local fundraisers, meeting and greeting the elite groups in the city, or hanging signs up around the city and claiming to have a presence in the community. It’s more about having a sense of the little guy in the room, and wanting to know, and learn that person’s views, thoughts, and mind set surrounding an issue.news and politics
Technology Revolutionizing the Health Care Industry! 0 comments
Patient Care Technology Systems of Mission Viejo, California has developed technology that will futuristically change the system of health care as we know it today. The game changer used to avoid newborn abductions in the early eighties has now revolutionized the way Health Care Administrators track and monitor their patients, staff, and equipment. Electronic tags similar to bar codes used in products at local stores such as Wal Mart, and JC Penny are being used by hospitals to keep an eye on vitally necessary equipment used for emergency purposes such as EKG’s, and defibrillators in the emergency room, all the way down to monitoring arriving patients, and sending needed staff to understaffed areas of the facility. On one side of the table this technology provides for a more efficient health care facility, one that keeps patient waiting times low, inventory control more effective, and accurate, and staff more closely available for emergency tasks at hand. “Christiana Care Hospital, a 907-bed teaching hospital in Newark, Del., installed an electronic tracking system in 2004. The system, using infrared sensors in the ceiling that automatically read badges, shows the location of patients and doctors on an electronic map. By keeping closer tabs on people, the hospital says it has been able to cut about 40 minutes from what used to be a typical emergency-room stay of four to six hours. It's also reduced by about half the 4% to 5% of emergency patients who used to become frustrated and leave without treatment.”
However, this technology does not sit well with the pundits, which although given all of these qualities still poses major drawbacks; one in particular is the privacy issue. In a way it is like treating all of your assets as if they were items, in terms of equipment that would be perfectly acceptable, but when closely monitoring your employees for known, or unknown reasons that in my opinion crosses the lines. Staff members also felt that administrators could, and would use this device to track employee coordinates, thus eliminating confidentiality of paid or unpaid downtime. Also, a study published this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association warned that systems using high-frequency radio waves, the most powerful of the tracking systems, could interfere with the functioning of medical devices. The signals could stop a hospital pump from operating, switch off a ventilator or interfere with a pacemaker, the researchers warned. It is almost like using the philosophy of kill one to save a thousand, if the benefit outweighed the risk in the majority of circumstances it may just be in the best interest of companies to install, and utilize the up and coming technology.
Do you believe that health care facilities would benefit, or lose from this type of technology? Why or Why not....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122645364411819495.html
news and politics
