QUICK READ: Some deaths will occur during the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, but these deaths would have happened for other reasons and are unrelated to the vaccine. Vaccine-hesitant groups are peddling misinformation online and conspiracy theories aimed at eroding trust in the COVID-19 vaccine are everywhere forcing people to conduct more research.
QUICK THOUGHT: People believe the COVID-19 vaccine was developed in less than a year but that’s not true. Coronaviruses were first encountered in April 1930, when a strange respiratory disease ravaged poultry farms across North Dakota and Minnesota, killing tens of thousands of baby birds. Further scientific research into the virus and recognition that it was not like influenza A, a flu virus known to cause bronchitis, would transpire over the next 30 years.
IN BRIEF: Doctors are not required to treat obese patients who won’t do anything to lose weight but the problem is more than reminding patients they need to get exercise and drop pounds. One study found that only 50 percent of patients follow the instructions associated with taking their medication, and even fewer implement necessary lifestyle changes suggested by their doctor. This is leading to excessive costs to out healthcare system and something needs to be done.
QUICK READ: If you start to lose key people, you won’t be able to keep the business you do have, and things will go from bad to worse. Companies who see their good employees as “replaceable” are wrong. Good employees are not replaceable. Pharma cannot afford to let good people leave without so much as an exit interview to try and retain them.
SUMMARY: Value-based healthcare is a healthcare delivery model in which providers, including hospitals and physicians, are paid based on patient health outcomes. Under value-based care agreements, providers are rewarded for helping patients improve their health, reduce the effects and incidence of chronic disease, and live healthier lives in an evidence-based way. In a country where people really don’t care of themselves value-based healthcare won’t work.
SUMMARY: Once again, the “hype” may be bigger than the reality around telehealth. First, people aren’t always completely honest with their doctors. A recent study published in the journal JAMA Network Open found that 60 to 80 percent of patients have been less than fully forthright with their doctors at some point which can be worse with telehealth. According to a survey, close to 60% of physicians have lingering reservations about the quality of care they can provide remotely.
SUMMARY: COVID-19 has killed many people worldwide, but how many really died from COVID, and how many died because they had an underlying chronic health problem as a major factor? We may never know, but we can not afford to do anything while our population becomes more obese and unhealthy.
SUMMARY: Per the Times, “what if consumers could calculate the benefits and risks of taking a prescription drug as easily as they can gauge the carbohydrates and calories in an Oreo cookie?”. Drug facts boxes are needed, but the FDA disagrees.
