Hundreds
of thousands of lives and billions of
dollars
in health care costs could be saved by the
use of several simple preventive medicine
measures.
But fewer than half of American adults are
using those measures, according to an American
Journal of Preventive Medicine analysis
of more than 8,000 previously published studies. The
most effective measures, and among the least used, are
daily aspirin for high-risk adults, tobacco
cessation and colon cancer screening.
http://www.prevent.org/images/stories/clinicalprevention/executive%20summary.pdf
H
I T S
Consumer
Reports on Health cited a Health
Behavior News
Service story about British
Columbia dog owners getting
more exercise than dogless neighbors. A Cochrane
Library story distributed by HBNS about the palliative effect of music on
post-surgical patients was used by the Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and
the St. Paul Pioneer-Press.
M
I S S E S
The
AP recently ballyhooed a New England
Journal of Medicine study of malpractice lawsuits suggesting that 40 percent
of them are "groundless." Closer reading of the numbers shows that
while 10 percent of plaintiffs got money they did not deserve, 16 percent deserved
money but didn't get any.
Authors of the study said "portraits of frivolous litigation are overblown."
If all someone does is one thing -- be it brain surgery
or repairing transmissions -- you can bet that person
will be expert. So it shouldn't be a surprise that research
in emergency medicine shows if your heart suddenly stops
beating, you have a better chance of survival if your
city has fewer paramedics on duty than a city with more
of them.
Jessie
Gruman President
and Executive Director
Center for the
Advancement of Health
On
If
they are deployed only as needed, paramedics would spend
more of their time actually performing difficult life-saving
techniques and getting better at it. Since most 9-1-1
calls are not for sudden cardiac arrest, the "more
is better" approach
to emergency medicine simply wastes the experts' expertise.
The same principle applies to most decisions consumers
make about health care. Don't look for which doctor or
hospital is rated best overall or costs less; look for
the one who does the most of what exactly you need done.
For instance, breast cancer researchers are working on
diagnostic techniques so refined that many women
may in the future avoid suffering through the chemotherapy
now
prescribed routinely for nearly everyone. While
great
progress has been made in refining treatment, the
same refinement
means that there is rarely only one answer, one
approach, one way to proceed. The final decision
will always have
to take into account the probable effectiveness
of a treatment as it relates to one's unique personal
history
and condition.
And
in the end, the biggest question one has to ponder
when offered any treatment for any disease -- or
for screening tests -- has to be: "Is this right
for me?"
Even if you had nothing else to do but read medical
journals and quality ratings of hospitals and
doctors after you
have been diagnosed with something serious, the
system that produces new research still might
not provide a
wise consumer with a reliable answer.
Every day, we seek every piece of information
we can about our cell phone plan, the quality
of teaching
at
our children's
school, the best new home entertainment system
for our needs. And the result is often a set
of unrealistic visions
of riskless solutions, including those concerning
our health care. If we can just be treated
by the right doctor
at
the right hospital with the right drugs, we
think we will be restored to good health.
This
is what we have been promised by the pharmaceutical industry,
by scientists looking for public
funding and by journalists who over-claim
progress in
medicine.
And it is what we want to believe even as
we butt up against an evidence-producing
system
that constantly
replaces old
truths with new ones, appears to be unreliable
and is
rife with hidden conflicts of interest.
Even the most dedicated
consumer of health information begins to
wonder whether it is worth the energy to
second-guess
conventional wisdom
-- whatever it is.
FROM THE CENTER
Carol
Cronin, a prominent consultant on consumer health
information and aging issues, has been elected to the Center's
Board of Trustees. Since 2000, she has advised a number
of non-profit organizations, foundations and government
agencies, including the California Endowment, AARP and
the Delmarva Foundation. Other clients have included the
federal Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion,
Atlantic Philanthropies, the Markle Foundation, the National
Health Council, the Health Insurance Reform Project at
George Washington University, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
and the California HealthCare Foundation.
Six
new Kellogg Health Scholars have been named to the "community
track" programs. They are GiShawn Mance and Caryn
Rodgers at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg
School of Public Health; Shawn Kimmel and Larkin
Strong at the University of Michigan School of
Public Health; and James Amell and Dionne
Smith at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill School of Public Health.
Center
Vice President for Public Affairs Ira Allen is
arranging a National Press Club appearance June 26 by John
Seffrin, chief executive officer of the American
Cancer Society and president of the International Union
Against Cancer. Call 202-662-7501 for reservations.
HEALTH AND BEHAVIOR INFORMATION TRANSFER
The Task Force for the Aging
Research Coalition is convening a Capitol Hill briefing
June 22 in Room 116 of the Dirksen Office Building. The subject
is boom and bust funding cycles of medical and health care
research. Contact: 202-293-2856.
The
National Center on Caregiving at Family
Caregiver Alliance has released a report calling
for a fundamental change of thinking in policy
and practice to establish the assessment of
caregivers as a basic component of practice
across care settings (home, hospitals, physician
offices and community-based programs). http://caregiver.org/caregiver/jsp/content_node.jsp?nodeid=1630
The
National Center for Health Statistics will
hold its 2006 Data Users Conference July 10-12
at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington. The
conference will focus on the role of data in
evidence-based decision-making in health care. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/events/duc2006/duc_announce.htm
The
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is
accepting nominations for the 2006 Secretary's
Innovation in Prevention Awards, which will
identify and celebrate outstanding organizations
that have implemented innovative and creative
chronic disease prevention and health promotion
programs. Deadline is June 15. http://prevent.org/awards2006/
