Staying healthy may cost a little, but getting sick costs much more. In a study published in 2017, researchers found that over-50 people’s annual income tends to go down significantly years after being hospitalized. It also doesn’t help that they’re also at greater risk of filing for bankruptcy as they struggle to pay off medical bills.

To avoid such a costly mistake, people have become more mindful of their health. Consultations with physicians and other doctors have increased as of late, especially with the public demanding sound answers in the midst of the pandemic. But whether it’s COVID or something else, now is as good of a time as any for hospitals, clinics, and their teams of doctors.

Medical consultancies, like HRMD, can help maximize the advantages brought about by the rise in demand for doctors. One way involves reducing staffing costs amidst more people seeking the services of their family physician. To understand this, it’s important to look at the many reasons for this trend.

1. Knowledge of Medical History

Most family physicians see and treat generations of patients and their relatives over their careers. This setup fosters a personal relationship, building trust and peace of mind, as well as gather data on a family’s history of medical conditions. The information can help doctors develop preventive solutions for successive generations of patients, keeping costly medical expenses at a minimum.

Compiling medical history takes advantage of the fact that nearly all known diseases are genetic in nature. A doctor entertaining a patient suffering from sickle cell anemia, for instance, can dig up records of the patient’s ancestors being diagnosed or treated for said disease. While treatments may vary by generation, a family’s medical history gives doctors a rough idea.

2. Expansive Network

Anytime a person falls ill, consulting a family physician is usually the first step. If more focused treatment is necessary, the physician can refer the patient to a specialist, such as a neurosurgeon or an oncologist. As medical disciplines are broad and numerous, it pays for a physician to be well-connected among colleagues and peers.

It also works from a cost perspective. The cost of a visit to a physician is almost always less than that of a specialist. Also, if the physician’s expertise is more than enough to diagnose and treat a condition, it’ll also mean savings for the patient.

3. Continuity of Care

Many studies suggest that regular access to primary health care is directly related to a longer life expectancy. One such study by researchers in the U.K. was even called the first of its kind as it established a correlation between mortality rates and continuity of care. With regular checkups, a physician can closely monitor a patient’s health, sounding alarms at the onset of abnormalities.

As the term suggests, continuity of care is concerned with care over time. The more patients rely on their family doctors of choice, the better the quality of care delivered. Chronic diseases can be manageable through this physician-led and team-based approach.

4. Minimizing Hospitalization

Cost isn’t the only reason for minimizing hospitalization. Experts have raised concerns about the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria or ‘superbugs,’ which have been prevalent in hospital settings in recent years. Both doctors and patients end up footing the bill, mainly for dispensing effective treatment and disinfecting the premises.

Unfortunately, people tend to rush to emergency care for maladies that a physician can easily treat. A physician may not be available 24/7, but the official line can stay open for inquiries. This way, any infection coming from the hospital can be minimized, even when patients visit the physician the next day.

Conclusion

Despite major reforms to the delivery of healthcare, health workers will remain at the forefront. A comprehensive medical database, convenient network of specialists and other practitioners, long-term investment in patient care, and preventive treatment all add up to a more reliable quality of care.

Torticollis is a condition that affects the neck muscles and is most often found in babies. Torticollis is caused by shortened muscle on one side of the neck that causes a baby to tilt its head to one side. About 3% of infants are affected by torticollis. Fortunately, in most cases, this condition is not serious. It can easily be remedied with some simple exercises.

Types of Torticollis

There are two types of the condition. Congenital muscular torticollis is the most common type. This version of the condition is present at birth and is almost always fixable through simple treatment. Acquired muscular torticollis, on the other hand, develops after birth. This version can be linked to more serious medical problems. Acquired torticollis can affect both children and adults.

Causes of Torticollis

Congenital muscular torticollis is most often caused by the baby’s position inside the womb. Think about falling asleep on an airplane without a neck pillow. You wake up and have terrible pain in your neck because your head fell to one side and has been pulling at your neck muscle on the other side for hours. This is an example of acute acquired torticollis, which can last about a week but typically is relieved on its own.

The discomfort you feel trying to gain back full range of motion for your neck after you wake up is very similar to your baby’s situation. Except with your baby, it isn’t the matter of a few hours with their head tilted. It is a matter of weeks spent in that position while their body is still developing.

Acquired torticollis may be caused by a variety of factors, including:

• Infection
• Awkward position while sleeping
• Birth injury
• Any injury that results in heavy scarring around the neck
• Herniated disk

Symptoms of Torticollis

Like all new parents, when hearing about a medical condition that could affect their baby, if you are reading this you are probably asking yourself, “How do I know if my baby has torticollis”? The most common sign that your baby is suffering from torticollis is a tilting of the head to one side, with the chin pointed towards the opposite shoulder. Other indications that your child could be suffering from this condition include:

• Limited range of motion for their head
• Your baby not tracking you with their eyes because they don’t turn their head
• Your baby struggling to turn their head
• A soft lump in your baby’s neck muscle
• A flat spot on the side of their head from laying in the same position all the time
• Trouble breastfeeding on one side

Torticollis is usually not diagnosed until a child is a few weeks old and normally begins to turn their head around.

Treatment Options

When congenital torticollis goes untreated, it can lead to delays in milestones for your child. Fortunately, there are many easy treatments for this condition. Your doctor may recommend physical therapy for your baby to treat this condition. However, they will most likely just teach you a few exercises you can do with your baby at home as a first option.

The objective of all home exercises is to loosen the tight muscles on one side of your baby’s head and tighten the loose muscles on the other side. This is accomplished by getting your baby to stretch its neck muscles. You don’t want to attempt to stretch your baby out yourself. Instead, you want to encourage them to do the stretching. This can be done in a variety of ways.

Lightly pinching your baby’s hands and feet or wiggling around their toes or fingers can get your baby to play with their limbs. This play helps them to build their muscles. Putting toys in front of your child that draw their attention from side to side and encourage them to move their neck to follow the action is a good way to stretch their necks.

Feeding on the unpreferred side can be a great motivator. A hungry baby is going to want to eat. Even if they have to move their head in an uncomfortable way to get to the food, they will likely put in the extra work for mealtime.

Tummy time is another great way to help your child treat their torticollis and is something that all babies should be doing multiple times a day anyway. Tummy time helps your baby build up muscles and prepares them for crawling. Simply lay your baby on their tummy for 10 to 15 minutes several times a day.

While they are on their tummy, you should position yourself on the side that their head is turned away from and try to encourage them to look your way. Tummy time can be very tiring for a young baby. If they lay their head down for 15 seconds or so, then they are tired, and you should give them a break.

Most of the time, home exercises will be enough to treat your baby’s torticollis. However, sometimes visits to a physical therapist may be necessary. In very rare instances, surgery may be required to fully correct the condition. Fortunately, this is incredibly uncommon and is not typically performed until a child is at least three years old.

Slip and fall accidents in hospitals are more common that you think. They happen not only to admitted patients but also to people who are visiting the hospital. Most of these accidents occur due to risky hospital conditions and other environmental factors.

When these accidents result in severe injuries, a legal complaint may soon follow. However, the lawsuit filed will depend on what caused the incident and other factors surrounding the event. This article will discuss what happens if you slip and fall in a hospital.

Slip and Fall Accidents in Hospitals

On any given day, you’ll find hospitals bustling with patients, relatives, workers, and visitors. Despite the busy environment, medical facilities have to continuously make sure the facility is sterile, spotless, and germ-free. It’s the hospital’s responsibility to ensure a safe atmosphere while maintaining cleanliness.

However, anyone can succumb to a slip and fall accident. This can be a result of any of the following:

• Dimly Lit Patient Rooms & Hallways: Sometimes, a patient room may have poor lighting that may cause the individual not to see an extra step or an upward slope on the floor. This scenario can lead to a slip and fall accident.
• Broken Pavement: People entering and exiting the hospital can get injured when there are gaps, holes, cracks, or uneven pavements and walkways. This situation is hazardous for individuals using walkers, wheelchairs, and canes.
• Unsafe wires & carpets: When there are mats or rugs not appropriately fastened on the floor, it can be a hazard to people passing in the area. A person can fall or trip on the bunch-up or lumpy corners. At the same time, people with wheelchairs or walkers can get stuck in the unsecured carpeting.
• Slippery Floor: Part of the cleaning process of hospital floors is to sanitize and wax them on a regular basis. However, some accidents are due to wet floors or the wax produced a slippery surface.

The elements above are only some of the examples that may cause slip and fall accidents in a hospital. When these incidents happen, it can result in an individual suffering an injury. To know the common injuries encountered by people in these accidents, you may review this article.

Legal Implications of Slip and Falls in Hospitals

Some of the consequences of slip and fall accidents are broken hips, back, and neck injuries that will involve intensive therapy. Besides undergoing treatment, people who suffered in these accidents may file either a premises liability or medical malpractice claim. The two lawsuits have a significant difference in how the case progresses and the indemnity you can receive.

Note though, whether you’re filing a medical malpractice or premises liability claim, it’s best to prepare a slip and fall incident report before seeking legal assistance. This way, you can correctly outline the specific details of the incident. Below you’ll find the distinction between these two legal areas.

• Medical Malpractice

In this situation, a court may determine medical malpractice if the patient involved in the accident is undergoing treatment during the time the incident happened. Furthermore, a healthcare provider or a facility must have given medical therapy regarded as sub-standard care that may have been the cause of the fall.

One example of a patient fall portraying medical malpractice is ‘Polypharmacy.’ The term means multiple medicines were issued to the patient at a given time. Because of this scenario, the side effects lead to the patient being unstable and causing a fall.

• Premises Liability

On the other hand, premises liability means the hospital where the slip and fall accident occurred is liable for your injury. If you’re a relative of a patient admitted to the hospital and you took a fall while visiting, you may qualify for a premises liability claim for the injuries you suffered from the incident.

When filing a premises liability claim, you’ll have to establish that the medical facility was negligent, resulting in your injury. For instance, you fell in a hallway with water on the floor. The court may find the hospital negligent if, for example, someone reported the water spill to the Housekeeping department, but they didn’t take any action to clean it.

Takeaway

In case you or a family member suffered an injury inside a hospital due to a slip and fall incident, avoid wasting time determining whether the incident is a premises liability or a medical malpractice case.

Consult a legal professional immediately about your situation. Discuss how the accident happened and determine your available legal options.

Royal Philips , a global leader in health technology, announced its participation in the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) virtual event, March 3-7, 2021, where the company will feature new and enhanced diagnostic and interventional solutions that further expand its Radiology Workflow Suite, connecting data, technology and people across the imaging enterprise. In furthering its commitment to workflow optimization, Philips will present how connected, smart systems and simpler, more efficient workflows can help reduce variability and staff workload, increase productivity, and enhance the patient & provider experience.

In 2020, the amount of health data surpassed 2,000 extabytes [1], while the number of radiology exams with advanced modalities increased by 43% [2]. Despite advances in technology, radiology services continue to struggle to connect workflows to support patients and staff with the information and tools they need to provide the right care in the right sequence at the right time. Moreover, repeat, low-value, and unnecessary imaging exams cost as much as EUR 10 billion annually [3]. The situation has been further exacerbated by COVID-19, where radiology departments are challenged to combine exams and procedures for patients with cancer, heart disease, and other conditions, while continuing to support critical care for COVID patients.

Integrated, smart solutions for more confident decision-making
The effective capture, analysis and reporting of data is at the core of modern diagnosis. At ECR 2021, Philips will showcase integrated, end-to-end solutions designed to provide more informed and confident decision-making. With the challenges of COVID-19 adding to existing stress on imaging departments, Philips has furthered its commitment to a “systems view” of imaging, focused on the specific challenges that patients, staff, clinicians, and administrators experience at each phase of the imaging pathway. Innovative solutions address system-wide challenges through the integration, digitization, and virtualization of the radiology workflow.

“By combining the power of imaging with insights from integrated diagnostics and AI, we can deliver diagnostic studies right the first time and optimize workflows to support staff efficiency, operational excellence, and continuous performance improvement,” said Kees Wesdorp, Chief Business Leader, Precision Diagnosis, at Philips. “At ECR, we will further demonstrate how Philips’ radiology workflow solutions are integrating complex data and analytics capabilities to inform timely, contextual diagnostic decision-making to guide caregivers and patients through more precise, personalized care pathways for better patient outcomes. This is the real promise of precision diagnosis.”

New solutions supporting Philips Radiology Workflow Suite at ECR

Philips will debut new technologies supporting its vendor-agnostic Radiology Workflow Suite at ECR, alongside its robust portfolio of clinically optimized diagnostic and interventional solutions. Philips Radiology Workflow Suite helps drive clinical and operational efficiency across all phases of the diagnostic enterprise, from scheduling and preparation, to image acquisition and data interpretation, to reporting and care pathway selection and treatment. New and enhanced solutions supporting Philips Radiology Workflow Suite include:

Philips Collaboration Live for Tele-Ultrasound. Provides real-time remote access to streamline communication and real-time support. Expanded access allows for better collaboration to treat patients. Clinicians have the flexibility to use text, voice call, screen sharing, webcam feed and remote system control to deliver remote consults to the exam room for real-time consults on complex exams.
Philips Engage. Remote patient management digital solution provides a clear overview of the patient’s available health information. The portal offers insight into files and treatment progress, allowing healthcare providers to do screenings, measure results, make video calls, chat, and prepare interventions for the patient.
Philips Clinical Pathways for Lung and Prostate Cancer. As cancer treatment becomes more complex and expensive, integrated oncology, pathology and genomics solutions enable end-to-end oncology care. From molecular diagnostics to therapy options, Philips Clinical Pathways streamline oncology care across the patient journey.
Philips Radiology Operations Command Center. The industry’s first vendor-agnostic, multi-modality radiology virtual imaging command center to enable real-time, remote collaboration between technologists, radiologists and imaging operations teams across multiple sites via private, secure telepresence capabilities.

Philips takes a holistic approach to integrating AI across its Precision Diagnosis portfolio, both for image processing and interpretation and for image acquisition, where automated and AI-enabled ‘smart workflows’ can increase efficiency and boost clinical confidence for system operators. Philips’ commitment to integrating data, AI, and analytics solutions supports its growing ecosystem approach, benefitting customers and the patients they serve. At ECR Philips is also showcasing innovations to enhance productivity and clinical confidence in diagnostic X-ray.

Spotlight on innovative Diagnostic Systems and Interventional Solutions

In addition to the new technology introductions supporting the Radiology Workflow Suite during ECR, Philips will showcase the latest innovations across its comprehensive portfolio of diagnostic and interventional solution. These include:

Precise Suite with AI for the Philips Incisive CT. The solution combines advances in AI reconstruction techniques and camera-based workflow, for motion-free cardiac scans and interventional procedures. Philips Incisive enhances the CT experience for patients and staff while controlling costs across the organization to help meet the most pressing financial, clinical and operational goals.
Philips enterprise imaging solutions, including its Vendor-Neutral Image Viewer (Vue Motion), KLAS Research’s 2021 Best in KLAS Universal Viewer (Imaging) award winner, and Philips Advanced Visualization Workspace, IntelliSpace Portal 12, honored with a EuroMinnie Award in the Best New Radiology Software category.

Philips’ next-generation Azurion image-guided therapy platform marks an important step forward in optimizing clinical and operational lab performance and expanding the role of image-guided interventions in the treatment of patients. An industry first, the advanced image-guided therapy platform now integrates control of imaging, IVUS (Intravascular Ultrasound), physiology, hemodynamic and informatics applications, as well as intuitive control of the gantry, at the tableside, allowing clinicians to control all compatible applications from a single touchscreen and helping to decide, guide, treat and confirm the right care in real time.

About Royal Philips

Royal Philips is a leading health technology company focused on improving people’s health and well-being, and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum – from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Philips generated 2020 sales of EUR 19.5 billion and employs approximately 82,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries.

Roche announced it has been granted special approval by the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) to offer the SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antigen Test using a simple nasal swab for patient self-testing in Germany.

The test is a reliable rapid test for the qualitative detection of a specific SARS-CoV-2 antigen in nasal swab samples.This rapid antigen test collects the sample from the front area of the nose instead of the nasopharynx, resulting in a simplified and more comfortable sampling procedure. By following simple instructions, patients can perform the test at home with results ready after only 15 minutes. The test will be made available in pharmacies and requires no prescription.

The German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices’ special approval of our test provides people in Germany with a reliable option to test themselves in the comfort of their own home,” said Thomas Schinecker, CEO Roche Diagnostics. “Regular self-testing at home can reduce pressure on healthcare systems. It can quickly identify people with the highest potential to be infectious so they can take immediate action to manage their infection, seek medical advice and protect others.”

This test is part of a partnership with SD Biosensor Inc., with whom Roche has also launched a SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antibody Test in July and two SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antigen Tests for professional use in September 2020 and February 2021. Those tests will continue to play an important role in this pandemic and remain available for healthcare professional testing.

Roche continues to expand its comprehensive COVID-19 portfolio to support healthcare systems in diagnosing SARS-CoV-2 infection.

About the SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antigen Test for at-home patient self-testing
The SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antigen Test for self testing is a rapid chromatographic immunoassay for the qualitative detection of the nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV-2 present in human nasal specimens. In a self-testing clinical study, the SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antigen Test showed a sensitivity of 82.5% and a specificity of 100.0% when compared to RT-PCR testing. The relative sensitivity was 91.2% for samples with a high viral load ( Ct ≤30). Patients suspected of COVID-19 followed written and illustrated instructions to sample and test themselves1. Most study participants considered the procedures easy to perform.

About antigen testing
An antigen test detects proteins which are structural or functional components of a pathogen and are very specific to that pathogen2. In this case, the test would provide a qualitative “yes/no” answer on the presence of the antigen in the patient sample and can be offered as a rapid strip test that is performed at the point of care. If the target antigen (nucleocapsid protein) is present in sufficient concentrations in the sample, it will bind to specific antibodies and generate a visually detectable signal on the test strip, typically with results ready in 15 minutes. A rapid antigen test can reliably detect individuals with a high viral load allowing healthcare professionals to quickly identify those patients at the greatest risk of spreading the infection.