Healthcare Archive

Medical recommendations and guidelines, such as colon cancer screening, seem to change often. These contradictions in large part reflect different expert opinions based on the changing scientific information. Rely on your doctor to help determine how these changes may apply to you.

People hunting for a new primary care provider may have a hard time finding a doctor who's taking new patients. But a number of primary care providers can do the job, including four types of physicians and two types of advanced practitioners. Doctors who provide primary care include internal medicine specialists, med-peds physicians, family practice doctors, and geriatricians. Advanced practitioners who provide primary care include nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Experts say the type of provider isn't as important as simply having a primary care provider in place.

Preventable adverse medical events occur in up to 7% of hospital admissions and sometimes can lead to serious and even life-threatening complications. Examples include inaccurate medications, unexpected infections, and problems during surgery. To help protect yourself from these events in the hospital, have a trusted partner be with you as much as possible, inquire about each of your medications when offered, and work with your nurse to move around safely.

Consumers should be wary about direct-to-consumer men's health clinics, as many offer costly treatments not supported by evidence and lack medical oversight, according to a 2023 investigative study.

A 2023 study found that a 12-week home-based cardiac rehab program may lower a person's risk of dying over the next few years. Cardiac rehab, a program designed to help people recover from heart-related problems, is traditionally done at a medical facility.

Blood pressure measurements taken at a doctor's office can vary widely from one visit to the next, according to a 2022 study. It included blood pressure measurements from almost 537,000 people, each with an average of 13 doctor visits over two years.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to assist doctors in the exam room. One day, AI may listen to doctor and patient conversations in order to suggest tests or treatments the doctor should consider, highlight possible diagnoses, and draft notes for medical records.

Hospital at home provides care in a person's home for common conditions such as heart failure. Health care providers visit at least twice daily and can draw blood, provide intravenous medication delivery, and take portable ultrasounds and chest X-rays. Patients are constantly monitored via a small patch on the chest that measures heart rate and rhythm, breathing rates, and activity. The program also provides a tablet used for videoconferencing with the doctor and specialists, if needed.

Increasingly, hospitalist doctors (who are present in the hospital 24 hours a day) take care of hospitalized patients, with advice from the patients' primary care doctors. This helps solve the dilemma of primary care doctors needing to be in two places at once—in a hospital with some patients and in an office with others. It's not a perfect solution: hospitalists often don't know the patients they're caring for, and they are unfamiliar with patients' extensive medical records. But ultimately, the increasing number of hospitalists is probably improving the quality and efficiency of hospital care.