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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (6559)	3/31/2009 4:54:34 PM
From: gg cox	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

<<Doctors know that it’s not right for someone to be on 15, 18, 20 medications,” said Dr. Tinetti, the Yale geriatrician. “But they’re being told that that’s what’s necessary in order to treat each of the diseases that the patients in front of them have.”>> Partial solution.. <<MedsCheck is a new unique program that allows you to schedule an annual discussion with a pharmacist for up to 30 minutes.>> health.gov.on.ca

To: TimF who wrote (6559)	4/1/2009 11:06:43 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 42652

In tomorrows democrat Socialized Medicine there is a solution to this problem: “I think everyone realizes that we need to figure out how to integrate care for our elderly patients with multiple chronic conditions,” Denied Coverage It may even come on Obama - Pelosi stationary.

To: TimF who wrote (6559)	4/1/2009 11:35:16 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42652

Treating an Illness Is One Thing. What About a Patient With Many? Strange coincidence. I was walking the dog last night and a neighbor nurse was coming home. She looked beat, and I said what's up. She said really bad day... she said it seems like everybody that comes into the hospital is suffering from a half dozen different things, and that it never used to be like that. I said "huh, that's weird, what do you think is causing it?". She thought it was drug interaction, she said these people come in with bags full of different drugs and take different pills all day long. Each one is approved for something but none are really tested for how they interact with the others, or two others or three others. FWIW

To: TimF who wrote (6559)	4/7/2009 6:13:57 PM
From: skinowski	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Multimorbidity and polypharmacy -- yeah, what about it? Most people, if they live long enough, end up having to deal with multiple health problems - and taking several medications. I can't grasp the message of the article - they sound as if they just discovered this phenomenon. What IS new is that we keep getting new medications, more means of treating the old illnesses. Thank God, and the Pharma scientists - and the capitalist system - for that! Having a good choice of treatment options is not a problem, it's the solution, or at least part of it. As far as all those recently fashionable treatment algorithms and guidelines are concerned, imho if the doctor knows what he's doing, they may be of some help. If he doesn't, the guidelines won't save the day. They'll probably end up being misused in some way. I think that the recent push for guidelines is part of an underlying... undertow, which has it as its (unmentioned) goal to computerize large chunks of medical decision making. I have no particular arguments against such an effort - but I think it will fail, unless an experienced clinician remains in the center of the process. Humans are not perfect, but machines, in many ways where it counts, are still kinda brain dead.