From MedPage Today: Members of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) on Thursday approved two draft recommendations for Congress aimed at increasing payments under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. “I’m very supportive of this work,” said Cheryl Damberg, PhD, commission member and director of the RAND Center of Excellence on Health System Performance. “I do think that this Medicare safety-net payment add-on will be critically important, especially in promoting greater access for low-income populations.” Damberg was responding to two draft recommendations presented by MedPAC staff members for inclusion in the commission’s upcoming March report to Congress. The first recommendation would update…
From ACP Hospitalist: …Given these factors and the USPSTF’s recommendation, some states have mandated that hospitals screen for HCV. For example, in 2016, Pennsylvania enacted a law requiring that anyone born between 1945 and 1965 be screened as part of inpatient or outpatient care. In response, Penn Medicine in Philadelphia tried to implement screening, by adding an alert in its electronic health record (EHR) that recommended clinicians order an HCV test. “We found there was limited uptake of this original best practice alert,” said Shivan J. Mehta, MD, MBA, MSHP, a gastroenterologist, an associate professor of medicine, and associate chief innovation…
From Time: Fat salaries and corporate success aren’t the gateways to happiness they’re cracked up to be. But it makes sense that we might think they are. “We’re fed such an incredibly dense diet of popular media and marketing that shapes our understanding of happiness in a way that actually gets in the way of it,” says Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director at the University of California at Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. “I think we as a society, particularly in the West, have a bit of an illusion about where happiness comes from and how to get more of it.”…
From Penn Medicine News: While certain aspects of life look more like they did before the pandemic, life as a health care practitioner remains decidedly changed today, nearly three years after COVID-19 arrived in the United States. After working long hours and seeing so many sickened, burnout risk is exceptionally high for clinicians across the United States, said M. Kit Delgado, MD, an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Tied to the complications related to burnout, Delgado pointed to a new study in JAMA Open that shows that the rate at which patients…
From Big Think: Our modern understanding of the relationship between work and boredom developed largely out of the Industrial Revolution. As the demand for factory labor increased, millions of people were forced to perform the same repetitive task for 12 hours a day, day after day, ad nauseam. This seismic shift from the work of centuries past erupted in a boredom epidemic. In fact, our modern word boredom didn’t originate until the mid-19th century, a combination of bore (one that causes weariness or restlessness) and the suffix –dom (a state of being). This association is so strong that many consider boredom to be a strictly modern phenomenon. While…
From FOX29 Philadelphia: PHILADELPHIA – The whole nation is praying for Damar Hamlin’s recovery following his collapse on Monday night. “It’s incredibly rare, a freak accident, so to speak, in the sense that there are probably a few dozen that occur countrywide every year, which is pretty unusual,” said Dr. Gray. “After every beat, the heart electrical system re-organizes itself and there is a vulnerable period of time, very small period of time, milliseconds, where if you deliver a blow just at that time, just at the right spot, you can have the heart electrical system become immediately disorganized, and no longer…
From Washington Post: The new year is here and so are resolutions to exercise more. Google searches for gyms typically spike in January, and gym membership also increases. While many people will start an exercise routine this week, the hard part will be sustaining it. Creating a lasting exercise habit takes time, experts say. “We’re built to want instant gratification over delayed reward,” said Katy Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School and author of the book “How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.” “And most good habits are about delaying some gratification in order…
From NBC Today: Adam Grant, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and host of the podcast “WorkLife,” shares how the new year is the ideal moment for people to set goals and make change in their life. NBC’s Harry Smith reports in this week’s Sunday Spotlight. Watch the video clip at NBC Today.
From NPR Life Kit: SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST: You might not realize it, but the way we exercise is becoming more like playing a game. An Apple Watch rewards you with badges for hitting milestones. Peloton ranks you among others, encouraging competition. Workout apps like Strava have a social media component connecting you to fellow athletes. All of these are examples of what researchers call gamification – making something tedious feel more like play. Earlier this year for NPR’s Life Kit, our producer, Vincent Acovino, set out to explain how you could gamify your exercise goals and have fun while working out….
From The Philadelphia Inquirer: By: Helayne Drell and Ravi B. Parikh, For The Inquirer The security system for SEPTA is getting a makeover within the next two months. SEPTA recently announced that starting in January 2023, an artificial intelligence software called ZeroEyes will begin scanning surveillance footage at 300 Philadelphia transit stops to detect the presence of guns. If a firearm is detected, ZeroEyes will trigger an alert to trained security specialists, who then request police dispatch. With Philadelphia’s rising gun-related incident rates, ZeroEyes is a promising solution to prevent gun-related crime through early police intervention. However, as a research group…