Critical care medicine in the United States 2000-2005: An analysis of bed numbers, occupancy rates, payer mix, and costs
Critical Care Medicine: January 2010 - Volume 38 - Issue 1 - pp 65-71
In a follow-up to their 2004 study on the condition of critical care medicine in the United States from 1985-2000, Neil Halpern, MD, and Stephen Pastores, MD retrospectively analyze the continuously “evolving role, patterns of use, and costs of critical care medicine” in the United States in the five-year span of 2000 to 2005. The authors conclude that critical care medicine continues to grow in a shrinking U.S. hospital system.

Advance directives for end-of-life care result in preferred treatment
The Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2010
One of the largest studies on the effectiveness of advance directives for end-of-life care—published in April’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine—concludes that these directives do indeed work, and that, in almost every case of the 3,746 deaths that they studied, the patients’ orders were followed by the surrogate decision-maker.
  To view the study, Advance Directives and Outcomes of Surrogate Decision Making before Death, in the April 1, 2010 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, please click here.

‘Death Panels’ Revisited: Studies Show Seniors Seek End of Life ‘Comfort Care’
Newsweek (blog), April 2, 2010
Referencing last summer’s “death panel” controversy, Newsweek’s “The Human Condition” blog points to the impressive statistics produced by the advance directives study in this month’s New England Journal of Medicine as evidence of the usefulness and importance of patients having a say in what happens to them when they get sick. The author urges healthcare organizations to support hospice and palliative care, and emphasizes the need for doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals to be trained in advance-care planning in order to improve the lines of communication between doctors and patients and their families to ensure that the patient’s wishes are met.

NIH Chief Francis Collins: Medical Research ‘Ought To Tell Us What Works’
Kaiser Health News, April 5, 2010
In an interview with National Institutes of Health Chief Francis Collins, the physician-geneticist—who for a decade led the Human Genome Project’s race to map DNA—rearticulates his mission for the agency to use science to improve the nation’s health system through comparative effectiveness research (CER). Collins acknowledges the difficulties in communicating the results of this research to the public—especially in the aftermath last year’s U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations on mammography—saying that “we ought not to just drop information into the middle of that without a lot of prior explanations of how these recommendations are arrived at.”

Health Law Surprise Is Page 1,617 Demanding Which Drugs Work
Bloomberg BusinessWeek, March 25, 2010
An article published in the aftermath of President Obama signing sweeping healthcare reform legislation into law claims that a “43-page measure tucked inside the bill may have a far greater effect on medical care” than the expansion of coverage or the “Cadillac” tax. The measure being referred to is the creation of the non-profit Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, funded with $500 million or more annually, and charged with setting a national agenda for the studies of which drugs, devices and medical procedures work best, as well as providing more money and disseminating results. The article quotes one Boston-based analyst as saying that, “in a health overhaul attacked by critics as too pricey, it’s one of the few measures with a chance to rein in U.S. medical spending that soared to $2.5 trillion last year,” and claims that the measure will serve to increase scrutiny treatments used by billions of Americans—a fact that has not gone unnoticed by drug companies and device makers.

Obamacare’s Cost Scalpel
Bloomberg BusinessWeek, March 24, 2010
Another article referencing the measure on page 1,617 of the 2,400-page healthcare reform legislation mandating that the U.S. put aside $500 million or more a year for comparative effectiveness research (CER) explores how that measure will help curb spending generated by the overhaul, and the effect that the establishment of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute will have on healthcare companies and providers.

Helping Patients Face Death, She Fought to Live
The New York Times, April 3, 2010
From The New York Times’ “Months to Live” series examining the promises and challenges of extending, or ending, the lives of very ill patients, the article profiles the terminal illness of Dr. Desiree Pardi, a leading practitioner in palliative care who had “always persuaded patients to confront their illnesses and get their affairs in order and, above all, ensur[e] that their last weeks were not spent in unbearable pain,” and Dr. Pardi’s struggle with her own end-of-life care and decision to keep fighting the disease, despite the professional advice she had always given her own patients.

Connecting Disaster Relief Through Technology After Earthquake in Haiti
The Huffington Post (opinion)¸ March 21, 2010
Much has been learned about the efficiency of post-disaster relief in the aftermath of Haiti’s earthquake this past January. In an opinion piece by Founder & CEO of Orphans International Worldwide Jim Luce, the author discusses several coordinated communication methods that could be employed in the future to enhance disaster relief operations that are frequently inhibited by inadequate communication. As Luce aptly notes, “Unreliable and diminished communications in an emergency environment is as much a killer as the catastrophe itself. Relief workers, medical personnel, and engaged citizens in Haiti have had their recovery efforts stifled due to failed or inoperable communications links. Additional road blocks of poor power and lack of trained information technology (I.T.) professionals have made a bad situation worse. Although the focus now is on Haiti, this scenario is the norm for emerging nations when disaster strikes.”

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