Seattle/LocalHealthGuide

[ February 12, 2009; 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. ]  

Starting January 29, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center will be offering a series of four free evening lectures on the fundamentals of cancer and cancer research for the general public by top scientists.

The  ”Science for Life” series will break down the concepts, skip the homework and offer a chance to interact with world-class researchers in [...]

Starting January 29, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center will be offering a series of four free evening lectures on the fundamentals of cancer and cancer research for the general public by top scientists.
The  ”Science for Life” series will break down the concepts, skip the homework and offer a chance to interact with world-class researchers in [...]

Honey often mislabeled and adulterated
The international honey trade is “fire with crime and intrigue” with honey traders “resorting to elaborate schemes to dodge tariffs and health safeguards”, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer senior correspondent Andrew Schneider reports in a two-part investigative series on the honey industry.
As a result, Schneider warns, don’t believe the label. “You may be [...]

Parents magazine has ranked Seattle Children’s the 13th top children’s hospital in the country. 
The ranking was based on a 250-questions survey filled out by 75 children’s hospitals. 
The survey asked the hospitals about such issues as survival rates, number of complex procedures performed, research studies, staff qualifications, and safeguards to prevent medical errors.
Among specialties, Seattle Children’s [...]

Washington bill would require MRSA screening 
All hospital patients would be screened for the super bug known as MRSA and those at high risk would be tested for the antibiotic-resistant bacterium under proposed legislation, the Seattle Times reports in its Dec. 28th issue.
Patients who tested positive for MRSA, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, would be isolated in private [...]

The Web site Network World has a profile of Seattle’s Swedish Medical Center’s new $3.8 million wireless network that allows its staff to access patients’ electronic medical records wirelessly via 600 workstations, 400 laptops and 200 tablet PCs.
“The key benefit of the new setup is the mobility of information,” says Steve Horsley, IT director at Swedish, [...]

Giving primary-care doctors time to give care
P-I reporter Vanessa Ho writes about efforts by Group Health Cooperative and Swedish Medical Center to give family doctors more time to see patients. Patients get 30 to 60 minutes a visit, instead of the standard 15, and better care. Doctors get to practice better medicine and have more [...]

One in four patients discharged from the hospital develop medical problems, problems sometimes  so serious that they end up going back to the hospital again.
In many cases, these complications could have been prevented with better discharge education and planning.
Hospitals, for example, could have done a better job educating patients about new medications they are being [...]

In this column, Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, talks about what hospitals—and you—can do to prevent hospital-acquired infections.

Simple Steps Can Reduce Health Care-Associated Infections
By Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D.
Did you know that there is a problem in health care that causes nearly 90,000 deaths and costs billions of [...]

[ December 17, 2008; 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. ]  

The Western Washington Chapter of a Physicians for a National Health Program, a group that supports the establishment of a single-payer health-care system for the United States, will hold its monthly meeting this Wednesday evening, Dec. 17.

The meeting will focus on responding to President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team’s call for community discussions on health-care reform.

The Obama [...]