NySiai - A Medical MRI Scan Resource

There is only one physician who is the epitome of proper doctoring as portrayed on The Simpsons. A graduate of “Hollywood Upstairs Medical College”, Dr. Nick Riviera is a jack of all trades: cardiothoracic
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Popularity: 87%

In my last post, I put forth the notion that in the present world of American hospital-based medicine, we have reached the point where many regulators/administrators/lawyers etc. believe that process improvement is the most important goal - rather than patient care improvement.

So, with profuse apologies to the late Mr. Beethoven, this is sung to the tune of Ode to Joy from his 9th symphony (taking certain liberties with the poem/hymn by Henry van Dyke).

And, for some reason known only to the ancients, "JCAHO" is always pronounced "JAYCO."

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The idea is to have a rendered 3D representation of the anatomy of the patient, and to use that as a basis for the record. This is reported in IEEE Spectrum. Visualizing Electronic Health Records With “Google-Earth for the Body” By Robert N. CharetteJanuary 2008 Andre Elisseeff leads a research team at IBM’s Zurich Research Lab that in September demonstrated a prototype system that will allow doctors to view their patients’ electronic health record (eHR) using three-dimensional images of the human body. Called the Anatomic and Symbolic Mapper Engine, the system maps the information in a patient’s eHR to a 3-D image of the human body. A doctor first clicks the computer mouse on a particular part of the image, which triggers a search of the patient’s eHR to retrieve the relevant information. The patient’s information corresponding to that part of the image is then displayed, including text entries, lab results, and medical images, such as magnetic resource imaging. Elisseeff hopes that by “opening the computer screen to the patient, better communication between doctor and patient can occur.” He also believes that by changing the computer’s role from a physical barrier to a conversation starter that the acceptance of eHRs will increase.

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Popularity: 100%

Verapamil SR 240mg/day. Protonix 40mg/day. Aspirin 81mg/day. Xanax 0.5mg PRN. Zocor 20mg/day. Not an uncommon list of medications for one of my patients. All important, some needed daily and some can be missed for a little while. But, this is just a list, not a set of instructions for building a nuclear power plant. This type of list is a good indication, a set of road signs if you will, of what other issues a patient I am asked to see faces other than their surgical problem. How I need to deal with each of them varies, depending upon the medication, the patient, their anticipated surgery, and the length of time they will be hospitalized. That’s a funny little game we like to play, called "being a doctor."  However, the bureaucratic bastards otherwise known as The Borg JCAHO don’t want us to use our brains. They view the patient’s list of medications as the Word of God, not to be tampered with, to be accepted as Gospel from the patient. Of course, this view is not to be tainted with the suggestion that, well, some patients really don’t know which medications they take, or how often, or what dose is involved. It is THE LIST!!! It is to be FOLLOWED!!! And, most importantly in this bureaucratic sinkhole our hospitals are collapsing into, it must be RECONCILED!!!! Yes, comrades, in its infinite wisdom and compassion, the Politburo JCAHO decided to mandate that every patient who is cared for at a hospital must have a Medication Reconciliation Form filled out. In theory, this is a pretty good idea — the folks caring for a patient should know what meds, at what doses, a patient is taking. The "reconciliation" part comes in deciding which meds to continue, which ones to stop, which ones to change, etc when a patient comes in the hospital. For the majority of my patients, nothing changes; they continue on as before surgery with no alteration in their medications other than the addition of some pain medication.

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Popularity: 95%

Please take this survey, I would like to know what is you GFR cutoff rate. We feel good about what we are doing at our hospital , but it would be nice to see what others are doing as well. We follow ACR guidelines and try to keep up with Dr. Kanal Frank Shellock, and Bill Faulkner as they come out with updates. thanks in advance for any participation.

Popularity: 93%

Lucy in the sky with diamonds , CT Scans & The Beatles.

As a direct result of The Beatles’ success, Dr Timmis claimed, the scanner’s inventor, Sir Godfrey Hounsfield, was able to devote about four years developing the scanner from its 1968 prototype, to something that could be used in a clinical setting. His work was done in the Central Research Laboratory, a facility near Heathrow airport that was part of the EMI Group. Having sold 200 million of the Fab Four’s singles, (at seven inches, almost enough vinyl to stretch the length of the equator) the Beatles’ record company, EMI, was able to fund Hounsfield to do his research and the CT scanner was ready be used in hospitals in the 1970’s.

 Look how far we have come Aquillion 320 slice CT scanner

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Popularity: 97%