Air travel suggestions for those with ostomy supplies:

Take along enough supplies to last the entire trip plus some extras. Double what you think you may need, because they may not be easy to get where you are going.
Even if you don’t expect to change your pouch take along everything you need to do so. Zip-Lock® bags may be used for pouch disposal. Leave home fully prepared. Find
out if and where supplies are available before a long trip. Seat belts will not harm the stoma when adjusted comfortably. You may place a clothes pin near the retraction
slot to relieve tension on the belt. When traveling by car, keep your supplies in the coolest part. Avoid the trunk or back window ledge.

When traveling by plane, remember that checked-in luggage sometimes (more…)

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Imagine this scenario: The nurse sets up the chart on the iPad, the doctor walks in with a stylus and examines you, and when he’s done the chart goes into the file and the prescription is waiting at the desk for you, printed clearly, along with your Coordination of Care Record. Hand the nurse your credit card and you’re off. No one has to rekey any data…..lessens chance for error.

Applie iPad - New medical device?

You can put a full day’s work in there and give one to every doctor. Or you can load charts remotely from the nursing station as each patient is admitted, and keep one in each exam room. At these prices you can do both — one per doctor, one per exam room.   Quite simply, this device transforms medical practice and delivers a solid, easy-to-follow upgrade path directly from paper. Put security on the clinic’s WiFi (you probably have that already) and HIPAA is happy. A little VOIP and pager software and you can follow the staff wherever they go, which is one reason WiFi is so cool in a hospital setting (more…)

On January 12, 2010 the nation of Haiti was devastated by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake.  This tragedy has resulted in astronomical death tolls and incalculable destruction.  It will take this poverty-stricken country many years to climb out from under the carnage of that day.  However, they can not do so alone.That it is why JRSMedical.com wants to help.  We will be donating a portion of our sales throughout the months of January and February to assist in Haiti relief.  These donations will be given to two organizations leading the way in Haiti - Samaritan’s Purse and The Red Cross.  All you have to do to is purchase the medical supplies you already planned on buying, and know that you had a part in bringing “HELP TO HAITI.”

It was 4 a.m., and the resident — a doctor in training — had already been at the hospital for almost 24 hours. It took a second page to remind her the patient needed help.

After another overnight shift, the doctor was so tired she accidentally stuck herself with a needle while drawing blood and prepping for an IV.

Her work week? A mind-numbing 120 hours.

“It’s tough to function. I try to have people who have been working less hours double-check my medicine orders, other things. You start to get to a point where it’s hard to focus,” said the St. Vincent’s Medical Center resident, who refused to be named because she feared retribution for exposing labor practices.

Residents and experts who talked to The Post said the punishing hours, often a violation of work rules, are commonplace among residents at New York City hospitals — and a practice that puts patients at extreme risk.

A medical student who followed residents doing 28-hour shifts at St. Vincent’s said she saw one unable to calculate a medication dose.

“He was so exhausted, he couldn’t think straight,” she said.

Uptown at Mount Sinai Hospital, a former resident in the rehabilitation unit said she was once asked to work 13 days in a row, a violation of state rules that require residents to have 24 hours off every week. After she complained, she said her supervisor threatened (more…)

The Web-based registry, invisibleBracelet.org, started in Oklahoma and got a boost this fall when the state’s government made the program an optional health benefit for its own employees. It’s looking to expand out of the state but unsure when this will happen. If you want to be e-mailed when it opens in your neck of the woods you can signup for it over at http://www.invisiblebracelet.org/site/sections/9 at the bottom of the page.

Now the Invisible Bracelet attempts to go nationwide as the American Ambulance Association next month begins training its medics, who in turn will urge people in their communities to sign up. For $5 a year, basic health information and up to 10 emergency contacts are stored under a computer-assigned PIN number that’s kept on a (more…)

At 4:15 p.m. Monday, the 114th and final patient arrives via ambulance from Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center’s campus in South Bend to its new $355 million facility in Mishawaka, making the hospital’s momentous move complete.

A command center at the new hospital staffed by about 30 employees, from computer network specialists to members of the hospital’s corporate headquarters, served as the heartbeat of the move.  Staff members there tracked the precise location of the patients who were en route from the old location to the new via 15 ambulances.  Patients arriving were greeted just inside the ambulance entrance to the emergency room at the new hospital, checked in and taken to their rooms.

The command center also served as the problem-solving headquarters for the move. Phone calls from staff members were referred to a variety of specialists who were manning the center.

Keely Paston, “issue coordinator” for the command center, said most phone calls resulted in easy resolutions. For example, several staff members called because they couldn’t find a parking spot, she said, or they needed medical supplies on their unit.  The command center opened last Friday and has been staffed continuously since. It’ll remain open until this Friday, Paston said.

Early Monday afternoon, Paston said the move had so far gone seamlessly because so much careful planning had gone into every detail during the past two years.

For Kay Naragon, a nurse in the labor and delivery department and a 29-year employee of SJRMC, Monday was an exciting day, too.  “I’ve been on both ends of the move,” she said of having packed up medical supplies at the old hospital and unpacked them to stock the labor and delivery rooms at the new location.

She enthusiastically pointed out some of the features of the new rooms for laboring moms, including the wall-mounted shower massages in the bathroom for women experiencing back labor and the hookups for portable birthing tubs.

Meanwhile, back in the emergency room just before 3 p.m., the 100th patient to be transferred from the old campus to the new was heralded through the door by several clapping employees.

Read more here.

It seems the health care sector is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal market for office space.  While the recession has left entire floors barren in many large offic complexes, demand for office space near hospitals is competitive and that has propped up rents and kept vacancies in check.

Doctors and other medical tenants have weathered the economic slowdown better than retailers and other office tenants. And for landlords, these tenants tend to stay in the same location longer than other office renters and have lower default rates.

Overall office sales are down this year, but the proportion of deals for medical buildings was up almost 11 percent. And the vacancy rate for these buildings is a mere 10 percent, compared to 16 for overall office buildings.  And that could go even lower in the next few years as the economy improves and baby boomers continue to age.

“The health care industry has been really the largest contributor to the economy for the past two years,” a leading realtor in Los Angeles said. “As the population gets older, there should be a requirement for more medical services and in turn an increased need for medical office space.”

Do you think the demand for this is going to increase with government mandated/run health care?

For those unfamiliar with what a latex allergy here is some information from the Mayo Clinic:

A latex allergy is a reaction to certain proteins found in natural rubber latex, like powder free latex exam gloves.  Latex is a product manufactured from a milky fluid that comes from the rubber tree. If you have a latex allergy, your body mistakes latex for a harmful substance. If someone with this allergy comes into contact with latex allergic reactions may happen ranging from sneezing or a runny nose to anaphylaxis, a potentially life-threatening condition. Your doctor may determine if you have a latex allergy or if you’re at risk of developing a latex allergy.

Not much fun ehhh? Of course their is a possibility of a new form of latex showing at your doctor that will not cause an allery.  Heard of the guayule bush? The homely little guayule bush renders a latex that is free of allergy producing proteins. This could have far-reaching benefits for industrial and medical communities and the public at large if the medical community start to embrace them.

Leanne Margaret Pinard- Miss Long Island Teen Shares her view on her Latex allergy.

The opening ceremony for the first large-scale US Flu Cell Culture and adjuvant manufacturing facility, developed in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will be held Tues. Nov. 24 at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics Flu Cell Culture Manufacturing Facility in Holly Springs, NC. The facility is planned to begin commercial production of seasonal flu and pre-pandemic vaccines after licensure in 2011. Honored guests from the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), CDC, Executive Branch of North Carolina and others, along with high-level Novartis executives including CEO and Chairman of Novartis, Daniel Vasella , CEO of Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Andrin Oswald, Global Head of Technical Operations for Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Matthew Stober, and other high-level US and state government officials (TBC) will be in attendance.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), has contracted with Novartis to support the design, construction, validation, and licensing of U.S. cell-based influenza vaccine manufacturing facilities in Holly Springs, North Carolina.

Although cell-culture technology for influenza vaccines is not yet approved in the US, the company’s contract with HHS includes funding for developing a flu cell-culture vaccine. If licensed in an emergency, the facility will be able to respond to a pandemic as early as 2011, according to Novartis. The plant is planned to be running a full-scale commercial production in 2013. The facility can also start producing MF59, the company’s proprietary adjuvant, as early as December 2009. Although not approved in the US, studies with such adjuvants are underway in the US. Novartis also operates a cell-culture-based manufacturing plant in Marburg, Germany..

The facility will have the capability to produce seasonal flu cell culture vaccine, pre-pandemic vaccine, and 150 million doses of pandemic vaccine within 6 months of influenza pandemic declaration.  6 months is fast but washing your hands multiple times a day helps prevent flu from spreading too.