Promoting patient safety and improving the quality of patient care
Tag: COVID
By Elise M.V. Wong (Director of Communications & Research, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)
44% of patients have delayed or avoided doctor’s visits because of COVID-19. This percentage is even higher among those diagnosed with cardiovascular disease or respiratory illness — two groups with an increased risk of contracting COVID-19 and of facing serious complications if medical care is delayed.
Continue reading “COVID-19 Keeps 44% of Patients From Seeking Care”
By Michael Wong, JD (Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)
In the early months of the COVID-19 epidemic, abnormal clotting was found in COVID-19 patients. As Bin Cao, MD, who is with the National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases in Beijing, described wide-spread clots in COVID-19 patients in a March 19, 2020 webinar cosponsored by the Chinese Cardiovascular Association and the American College of Cardiology – he found “clots in the small vessels of all organs, not only the lungs but also including the heart, the liver, and the kidney.”
Continue reading “A Misdiagnosis of Blood Clots Can Be Costly – Particularly During COVID-19”
Virtual Patient Care is a free service that allows anybody to get personalized answers to their health questions. We want to know how to serve you better. Please take this quick 3 minute survey and tell us how COVID has affected your health. As a reward, by completing this survey, you will have a chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card.
Continue reading “Has COVID affected your healthcare? Physician-Patient Alliance Wants to Help”
As the COVID pandemic continues to plague us, here are 5 things that you can do to help combat COVID:
By Michael Wong (Founder/Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)
We Are All Scientists But Some of Us Are More Scientists Than Others
We rely upon science, technology, and modern medicine each and everyday – the cell phone we use to talk and text with our friends and family, the TV we watch to entertain ourselves at night, the aspirin we take to get rid of our headaches, the inhaler we use to relieve our asthma, the eyedrops we use to ease our tired and irritated eyes.
Although all scientific facts should be believed – after all a “fact” is a “fact”, right? – we tend to pick and choose the facts that we want to believe. The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania discussed this selective behavior:
Continue reading “The Need for Better Communication About COVID and Other Scientific Facts”
By Michael Wong, JD (Founder and Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)
9 years ago today, I started the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety with a simple mission – advocate for improved safety and care of patients by developing and highlighting best practices and recommendations through better use and application of clinical practices and experiences, information technologies and checklists, and healthcare information.
In many ways, this cry for improvement focuses on systems – responsibility does not lie at the feet of the individual – for example through:
Continue reading “PPAHS Celebrates 9 Years of Patient Safety”
Because the COVID pandemic has presented us with unprecedented circumstances (probably only matched in current times by the 1918 Flu Pandemic, which occurred before most of our lives), our understanding of COVID is continually evolving and improving based on new research and data. Learning from new research and applying that knowledge to our lives and how we care for patients is essential
For this week, here are 3 studies that everyone needs to know about during this COVID pandemic:
Continue reading “3 Studies About the COVID Pandemic Everyone Needs to Know”
Nurses Face Twin Threats of Racism and COVID
If COVID did not pose a big enough threat, CNN interviewed a dozen Black nurses across the UK’s healthcare sector – they had varying degrees of experience (from students to practicing nurses with decades of experience) and worked in different roles and settings (from hospitals to care homes.
CNN found that these nurses “have experienced racism in the workplace — and that it has gotten worse amid the coronavirus outbreak.”
In this guest post, Dr. Brent Wells, DC discusses what chiropractic clinics and patients should do as clinics begin to open up after COVID-19. Dr. Wells founded Better Health Chiropractic & Physical Rehab in Alaska and has been a chiropractor for over 20 years.
By Brent Wells, DC (Better Health Chiropractic)
As chiropractic clinics start to open back up, many patients might feel a bit hesitant to make an appointment. How will the clinic protect them? What steps are chiropractors using to keep things safe? Below are some ways that chiropractors can ensure patient safety amid this troubling pandemic.
Continue reading “How Chiropractors Can Ensure Patient’s Safety Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic”
By Michael Wong, JD (Founder/Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)
Research has demonstrated that early adoption of wearing face masks slowed COVID infections – “Countries with early interest in face mask use had milder COVID-19 infection rates, according to a letter-to-the-editor published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.”
Myth #1 – COVID Doesn’t Exist, So What’s There to Worry About?
In March 2020, PolitiFact debunked a Facebook post with 8,000 shares claiming that “there is no virus.” PolitiFact is a non-partisan fact-checking website that checks the accuracy of claims and after reviewing Facebook posts denying the existence of COVID-19, PolitiFact concluded “Facebook users are claiming there ‘is no’ coronavirus. That’s ridiculously wrong.”