ER Docs as Primary Care Physicians By Dr. Evelyn Higgins

Picture this scene with me if you will for one minute because it just might affect you. You are rushed to the hospital due to chest pain, an obvious emergency situation where you are literally facing life or death due to a heart attack. You get to the ER and cannot be treated in time due to the lack of beds available because a bed was actually taken by a "fake patient" - a patient who is there to see how the doctor and staff do their job. Sounds like an overcrowded urban facility, and sounds like it is an impossible scenario. Well at this point, it is all fictional but may soon become a reality for us all, not just due to the situation of patients using the ER doctor as a primary care physician, but there is actually an ethics committee for the American Medical Association that is pressing for "undercover patients" to evaluate doctors and their staff. Such a situation could have disastrous consequences as doctors and hospitals are currently overburdened to begin with. We are faced with a system that wants to spy on the physicians and judge their performance at a time when physicians are working harder with more hoops to jump through due to a healthcare system that has more middlemen than actual doctors. Just try to have a procedure approved and you will see exactly what I am writing about. [more..]

The Virtues of Age and its Wisdom By Dr. Evelyn Higgins

Now that we are left with our two candidates for this seemingly unprecedented presidential election, we have already heard the Obama camp trying to use age as a derogatory characteristic about McCain. While that really shouldn't surprise me that in 2008 we look at 71 as old, it does. It is no secret that as a society we do not respect the aged. If we look at what I would suggest to be the model society when it comes to age, wellness, and wisdom, all eyes would be on the Japanese Island of Okinawa where the elder citizens of the community are sought after because of the wisdom they can impart on the rest of their society. They are the cornerstones of the community. They also have more centenarians than any other culture in the world. Let's take a hard look at our country, the good ol' USA, which is so caught up in materialistic beauty that we may just cast a ballot based on how attractive someone looks, based on their age, and "hip-ness." Scary as that is, many voters put no more effort into their decision than just that.

The latest research coming out of Harvard, Duke, UCLA and many other gold standard institutions of data tells us that wisdom, while being a difficult word to define, has been biologically uncovered. The research has shown that the prefrontal cortex of the brain has decreased activity in the older brain. This decreased activity allows for a broader attention span and the brain has the ability to assimilate data and put it in its proper place. The elder brain takes longer to absorb the information, but the trade-off is that it is better at understanding the data with all the qualities which define wisdom such as knowledge, understanding, experience, discretion and the capacity to use all. The largest age discrepancy in all of history for U.S. presidential candidates exists today. Think about what the 25-year difference means to the qualities that define the virtue of wisdom. The questions become: is Obama mature and ready and is McCain sharp and vigorous? It is in America that we get to decide!

The Wisdom of the Ages By Dr. Evelyn Higgins

While you might be concerned that you may have the beginnings of the dreaded Alzheimer's Disease when you couldn't remember a name or address, for example, a new work published by Harvard research psychologist Shelley Carson tells us that for most of the adults 65 years of age and older, the thought that our brain power is declining is not always the case. While 13 percent of Americans 65 and older have Alzheimer's Disease, the healthy 87 percent of the brains are actually taking more time to sift through the mounting data and then combine that with the vast storage of knowledge. The research has shown that the prefrontal cortex of the brain has decreased activity. This also allows for a broader attention span and the brain has the ability to assimilate data and put it in its proper place. That certainly is a great deal of work... no wonder it takes a moment! The elder brain takes longer to absorb the information but then is better adept at understanding the data with all the qualities I spoke of such as experience, discretion, and then the capacity to utilize the newfound information with understanding. That I believe is a key link, combining the data and understanding it collectively. Research has also shown that people with an injury or disease to the prefrontal cortex of the brain had the ability to pursue new creative interests. Very interesting as that may be why we can see our parents or our aging friends and neighbors become new people with new hobbies and interests that we never knew they had an interest in before. So while the elusive term wisdom has been so sought after and revered by all of mankind from the beginning of time we may finally have put together the pieces of how and why it all works. Now that really is wisdom! [more on Dr. Higgins...]

Healthcare: Political Wind and House of Cards

By Mark Tumblin, CEO ASCENT Integrated Medical Solutions

The winds of change are blowing through healthcare and in the last few years many states have taken the initiative to build a foundation for reform. Presidential hopefuls have jumped on board thrusting healthcare into one of the hot issues for political debate. The state of healthcare has been in the dark ages and reform seems to be passing through a slow burn into the 20th century much less the 21st. Will politicians create a healthcare house of cards only to blow it over with the winds of change?

How Sick is our Healthcare System?

We continue to lead the world in lifesaving technology. We see 15,000 new drugs hit the market each year. Lifesaving protocols and procedures are created daily yet we continue to operate the business of healthcare in the dark ages. Visit your physician and you will trigger a chain of events that will take up to 90 days to complete. This is the same process that Wal-Mart can complete in seconds. We pay out billions of dollars yearly in false claims and support every illegal alien with free healthcare. This happens because our current healthcare system cannot track a patient from one doctor to the next, one pharmacy to the next or bill it properly in a 90-day period of time. Your bank will record an ATM transaction before you get back to your car, yet our healthcare system lies comatose to 21st century technology.

Sensing that our healthcare system might remain forever on life support, President Bush passed legislation for reform. In the last 7 years hundreds of millions of dollars have been granted to states to begin the process of building an IT network for exchange of data. States have constructed regional health information organizations as a conduit for transporting information from physician to pharmacy to diagnostic and insurance provider. This foundation is important in constructing layers of technology supporting exchange at every level of healthcare.

House of Cards

The immediate danger that lies within healthcare is to completely ignore the symptoms. Senator Clinton would have you believe that 47 million Americans are without healthcare because of the irresponsibility of the current administration. Analysis of this number will show only about 10 million do not have insurance and an issue easily remedied by the proper addition of technology. Senator Clinton would reform our healthcare system by mandating healthcare to every citizen. This solution would require a minimum of $500 billion in new funds just to finance the 47 million, not to mention billions of dollars to correct the failing IT system currently lacking in Medicare and Medicaid.

Senator Obama would also require mandates for those Americans under the age of 19 or roughly 35% of the aforementioned noninsured. This solution does not address any of the actual problems in healthcare, not to mention address reform needed to change our technology systems, tort reform or government aid programs. While claiming there has been no leadership from President Bush, Obama promotes sending money to the states so that they can continue to experiment with technology reform.

The democratic wannabes would have you believe they have the solution to healthcare reform when as a matter of fact neither addresses the current issues, which have gotten us into a terminal state. The failure to recognize that we lose $75 billion per year on false claims to Medicare because we have not implemented the technology to track insurance is at best irresponsible. To suggest the solution to healthcare is a single payer system this week and next week suggest a multi-tiered single payer system is the solution is nothing short of democratic. In other words, if what I say this week doesn't work, wait until next week and it will change with the wind.

Reform that is Concrete

An analysis of the waste within our current healthcare system reveals hundreds of billions of dollars in misfiled claims, illegal payments, and an open system of delivery without controls. Information technology built at the state, local, then physician and patient level will create enough efficiency within healthcare to reform it as well as support it. The cost is less than one year of illegal aliens receiving healthcare in the U.S. Shall we choose the construction of a house of cards that will quickly add to the waste or continue on a path of reform by building on the stable foundation currently under construction?

Health Information Technology Reforms Healthcare

By Mark Tumblin, CEO ASCENT Integrated Medical Solutions

The business of healthcare at the physician/patient level is 10-20 years behind in technology. All patient records are recorded on paper. Comparing lab results and the diagnosis of the physician is a manual operation and takes several days to process. The insurance company charging premiums gets a claim that has been handled by not less than four pairs of hands who each stake a claim to the financial outcome of the office visit. Combine all this inefficiency and it is no wonder physicians collect $0.63 on the dollar and are satisfied. This is unacceptable to every other business in the U.S., so why do we accept it in healthcare? [more...]

Knowledge is Power By Dr. Evelyn Higgins

Knowledge is power, but only if we use it! That certainly is the case when it comes to genome mapping. Within five years we will all have access to this incredible test, that potentially can change your fate tremendously, at about the cost of an MRI or CT scan. In discovering the genetic sequence, we have learned that the number of genes was actually far less than we originally believed. So now, armed with your personal roadmap of genes, you and your doctors will be able to predict and prevent a multitude of diseases. The genome is comprised of chemical units strung together in a type of biological code. While no two individuals are alike, no two genomes are identical. With this test, you can learn where your ancestors are from, what genetic diseases you may carry, your risk for developing a new specific disease, what diseases you should be screened for more frequently, which treatments would be most effective for you, and which medicines you should avoid. [more...]

Facts on Cardiovascular Disease By Dr. Evelyn Higgins

Did you know that cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in the United States? Did you also know that it is the most chronic preventable disease? Does that make any sense at all - that is, to be chronic and preventable but still be the number one killer? If you are a thinking person the answer would be a resounding No!

The fact of the matter is that cardiovascular disease strikes more women than men. Shocking for many people to hear. It was once stated that our health is a gift- a largely controllable gift. We can control this gift through lifestyle choices that we have the power to make. These choices include the foods we eat, or don't eat and the exercise we do, or don't do. Are you starting to see the picture? [more...]