Office by Alex Penny
www.myspace.com/bethanyhamm
It took me forever, but here it is. A short photo/film montage of my trip to India last month.
(Source: vimeo.com)
It’s not as fun when I’m the patient.
Heart Stop Beating by Jeremiah Zagar of Focus Forward Films.
Back in July of 2011, a reader asked me about my opinion on a pulseless pump. At the time, I had never heard of such a technology but was excited and intrigued. Drs. Billy Cohn and Bud Frazier saved the life of Craig Lewis with a pump design that was so far out of the box, that by all conventional metrics the patient was dead.
And yet he lives.
This is the story behind that amazing radiograph.
It’s good to have your mind blown first thing in the morning.
Turns out nurses in India are just like most nurses in the states…shorter than me.
Without looking it up. And I was right. Pretty excited about that right now.
Philips just released a new iPad 2 app called Vital Signs Camera that uses the camera to measure your heart and breathing rate. It detects subtle beat-to-beat changes in the color of your face to measure your heart rate.
We’re slowly living in the future.
What.
More details soon!
Work costume: neurosurgery patient. (Taken with instagram)
So for the past month I’ve been laying all the groundwork for my next company. It’s called Sherpaa. The branding and the site are coming together nicely and the legal side of things is too. Here’s what Sherpaa will do:
A few weeks ago, I received an email from a friend of a friend who was complaining of a few hours worth of worsening belly pain. I was worried it might be appendicitis. I forwarded the email to my personal friend Dr. X who is a well-trained and super likeable general surgeon with a beautiful office overlooking Union Square. I reiterated that this might be appendicitis. I texted him that I sent him the details. He texted back, “Send him right over.” I texted the friend of a friend and told him to go immediately to Dr. X. He did. Dr. X examined him and was also worried. Dr. X has recently been operating at a new outpatient surgical center on Park Ave. It has a CT scanner. Dr. X sent the patient to the center, told them to get a CT, and, if it’s positive, to set up an operating room for him. He could be there in a half hour. The CT was positive and a room was set up. Dr. X performed the laparascopic appendectomy without complications and the patient was sent home on oral antibiotics three hours later. Dr. X billed the insurance company $47,000. The insurance company called him the next day to ask why his bill was so small. Dr. X’s previous laparascopic appendectomies while operating at the high overhead, massive traditional institution, Y Hospital, was around $110,000, for which, Dr. X is paid $1500. The rest of that money goes toward Y Hospital’s overhead. Because of the low-overhead and business arrangement at the new Park Avenue Surgical Center, Dr. X kept 52% of $47,000.
Just to reiterate, a person with acute appendicitis had his appendix removed by an amazing surgeon in a beautiful spa-like experience and never stepped foot in an ER or a hospital, and the bill was $63,000 less than going the traditional ER/Hospital route.
Everybody won in the situation:
The only entity that lost was the ridiculously high overhead, traditional hospital that can’t/won’t get their head out of their asses to offer up patients a great experience… so Sherpaa is changing that.
Call it Triage 2.0 maybe. It’s like having a doctor friend who has mapped out the best experiences in NYC and created a network of hand-picked health professionals chosen for their quality, their communication skills, their personality, and their mission. You can call or email us anytime when you’re in a bind and we’ll work with you to figure out:
Our customers are small businesses/startups who may or may not be self-insured in NYC who want to offer this as a perk for their employees. It’s pretty exciting and I think it’s my best idea yet. And it’ll be brought to you by my company, The Future Well. If you’re a doctor in NYC and think you want to be a part of this, please do contact me.
This is amazing. I’m passing this on to all my medical friends. Get me to NYC!
(via loveyourchaos)
GPOYW: The I Didn’t Realize “Guinea Pig” Was In My Job Description edition.
I started my TB meds today. 1/3 of the world can’t say that. Visit PIH or Doctor’s Without Borders to learn how you can help fight this lethal disease.
(via loveyourchaos)
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Dr. Paul Farmer, Partners in Health, Haiti.
