Health Care

It’s an appropriate day to talk about stress. If you treat heart rhythm problems, you can’t miss the effects of stress. It matters so much. Both acute and chronic–though mostly chronic–stress wreaks havoc on the heart’s electrical system. And it’s not just the heart rhythm; the chronic inflammation that goes with long-lasting stress negatively impacts [...]

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Patient safety and hospital quality is a scary topic. I’ll go easy. I’m just a doctor. I don’t know much. Entire departments, filled with cubicles, computers and well-meaning people, now exist to keep hospitals tightly regulated and running perfectly. There is data to analyze, regulations to read, and oh so many meetings to attend. This [...]

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My hospital has just weathered an impressive upswing in patient volume. The house was full for weeks. The experience highlights an important aspect about quality care–an obvious one that doesn’t always make headlines. What I notice when the hospital gets full is that patients are sent to units that they don’t normally go to. For [...]

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There I was sitting at the computer in between ablation cases. It was a normal Thursday. I was thinking about my next column over at theHeart.org. A nurse from the catheterization lab came in and told me that Dr. Dillon was giving a press conference. He was announcing three major initiatives for heart attack care [...]

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Healthcare looks much different than it did just a few years ago. When you let your mind wander about where we were, it’s shocking really. There’s cultural changes, including an explosion of complexity of care, an infusion of young doctors with different ideas about life, an evolving set of incentives, employment models and a heck [...]

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I’m sad. Gone is the novelty of having magic in my IPhone. For over a year, I was special. As a beta-tester, I could show you your heart rhythm on my IPhone. Today, the AliveCor IPhone ECG passed muster with the FDA. It gained clearance to be sold to medical providers. I first reported this [...]

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