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The Healthy Flap: Janaury 4, 2012

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These are my health links for December 30th through January 4th:

  • Copying common in electronic medical records – Most doctors copy and paste old, potentially out-of-date information into patients’ electronic records, according to a new study looking at a shortcut that some experts fear could lead to miscommunication and medical errors.”The electronic medical record was meant to make the process of documentation easier, but I think it’s perpetuated copying,” said lead author Dr. Daryl Thornton, assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland.Electronic health records have been touted as having the potential to transform patient data from indecipherable scribbles into easy-to-read, searchable, standardized documents that could be shared among hospital staffers and a patient’s various other health care providers.
  • 2012 was worst year for whooping cough since 1955 – The nation just suffered its worst year for whooping cough in nearly six decades, according to preliminary government figures.Whooping cough ebbs and flows in multi-year cycles, and experts say 2012 appears to have reached a peak with 41,880 cases. Another factor: A vaccine used since the 90s doesn’t last as long as the old one.The vaccine problem may continue to cause higher than normal case counts in the future, said Dr. Tom Clark of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    “I think the numbers are going to trend up,” he said. The agency provided the latest figures on Friday.

    Last year, cases were up in 48 states and outbreaks were particularly bad in Colorado, Minnesota, Washington state, Wisconsin and Vermont.

  • Julia Roberts to star in HBO film on early AIDS epidemic – Julia Roberts will star as a paraplegic physician treating patients early in the AIDS epidemic in the stage-to-screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning drama “The Normal Heart,” U.S. cable television network HBO said on Friday.”The Normal Heart,” set to air on HBO in 2014, tells the story of the dawning of the epidemic in 1980s New York.Oscar-winner Roberts plays Dr. Emma Brookner, who treats several early patients infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS. Co-star Mark Ruffalo plays Ned Weeks, an eyewitness to how the disease ravaged the city’s gay community.
  • FDA proposes sweeping new food safety rules – The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed the most sweeping food safety rules in decades, requiring farmers and food companies to be more vigilant in the wake of deadly outbreaks in peanuts, cantaloupe and leafy greens.The long-overdue regulations could cost businesses close to half a billion dollars a year to implement, but are expected to reduce the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from foodborne illness. Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher.
  • CrossFit Endurance’s Unconventional 12-Week Marathon Training Plan – Brian MacKenzie has a few pointed words about your endurance workout. “If you’re running five miles a day at the same speed and think you’re getting a lot out of that, you’re sorely mistaken,” says the founder of CrossFit Endurance. “If you’re not trying to improve, what’s the point?” MacKenzie, who lays out his radical philosophy in the new book Power Speed Endurance, believes that short, intense exercise can give you many of the long-haul benefits of classic distance workouts—and spare you the chronic injuries and boredom. To try this 12-week program for runners, seek out a CrossFit Endurance gym or coach (there are hundreds listed at CrossFitEndurance.com). “If you can’t make it through the first week, back off a little,” MacKenzie says, then add reps as your strength and stamina improve. Your performance should get better each week.
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The Healthy Flap: December 29, 2012

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These are my links for December 29th:

  • 52 ways to leave your blubber – This is the year you will resolve to ditch the diets, the “all or nothing” mentality and the “no-pain, no-gain” fitness goals. This is the year you will resolve to use common sense to eat less junk food, move more — and have fun doing it.Remember what it was like when you were a kid and you thought nothing of playing tag for hours on end? That spirit still lives. You just need to wake it up. Maybe with a high-energy hula hoop workout or Shaun T’s “Hip Hop Abs,” done in the privacy of your own home. Or by walking your dog while listening to a Dan Brown thriller. Instead of embarking on yet another diet, why not try to lose roughly 1 pound a week by creating a modest 500-calorie deficit each day. That’s easily accomplished by slashing about 250 calories from your diet (the equivalent of five Oreos) and burning about 250 calories through exercise, such as a brisk two-to-three-mile walk. You can do that easy.
  • Hope for hearing: Cochlear implants – Cochlear implants are electronic hearing devices for people with profound deafness or severe hearing loss who get no benefit from a hearing aid. There is an external part that is worn behind the ear with a microphone that picks up sounds from the environment, a speech processor and a transmitter that gets signals from the processor and turns them into electric impulses. It is attached to a receiver and electrode system which is surgically implanted into the inner ear. It’s typically done as an outpatient procedure.An implant does not restore normal hearing and is very different from a hearing aid. Hearing aids amplify sound so that damaged ears can hear them. Implants bypass the damage and directly stimulate the auditory nerve which then sends the signals to the brain.
  • Medicare Cuts Loom Large as ‘Cliff’ Nears – It’s looking less and less likely that Congress and the White House will strike a deal to keep the country from falling over the “fiscal cliff” next week, so physicians are preparing for a 28.5 percent cut in Medicare payments that will take effect on Jan. 1.That figure includes a 26.5 percent cut under Medicare’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) reimbursement formula and a 2 percent cut mandated by the Budget Control Act, the piece of legislation that outlined the tax increases and spending cuts that define the fiscal cliff.
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