Ways to Improve Telemedicine Patient Engagement
Telemedicine is the future of medicine, and for many patients in rural areas, the future is now. According to the American Telemedicine Association, over half of U.S. hospitals use telemedicine to help diagnose, treat, and care for patients. Although there the most critical of procedures require in-person visits, there are a wide range of services physicians provide through telemedicine. Since engaging with patients during a visit is...
Terminal Cancer Patients Live Longer at Home
In a study found in the March 28 online issue of Cancer, a journal published by the American Cancer Society, a study done in Japan found that patients with terminal cancer live longer when cared for at home. Dr. Jun Hamano, the lead researcher at the University of Tsukuba in Japan, conducted the study on approximately 2,000 terminal cancer patients. Approximately 1,500 patients received hospital-based palliative care and about 500...
Doctors & Depression: Why Physician Suicide Rate is Rising
Intelligent, prestigious, wealthy, knowledgeable – these are all words that might come to mind when people think of physicians. What about stressed, overworked, frustrating, anxiety-inducing? Well, these are probably a few of the words that physicians would use when asked to describe their career. Unfortunately, the intense demands of a career in healthcare are wearing physicians down more and more. Let’s understand the...
Rough Health in Rural Areas
Each year, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation releases health-related statistics about each county across the United States. The County Health Rankings are based on factors such as length and quality of life, social and economic factors, clinical care, physical environment, level of education and more. For the past seven years, these rankings have proven to be a valuable resource for those studying healthcare trends, and this year,...
What Locums Need to Know About Opioids
More than 40 Americans die each day from prescription opioid overdoses, and since 1999, the amount of opioid prescriptions has quadrupled. There are a lot of opinions and controversy surrounding the fairly recent opioid epidemic, with many opioids like oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone becoming mainstream drug names. Some people have the misconception that this epidemic was caused by crooked doctors that handed out prescriptions...