Hospital Preparedness; Bionic Heart; Dr. McClellan stepping down
With the 5th year anniversary of Sept. 11, there are many articles focusing on the preparedness of hospitals nationwide, especially those in highly populated urban areas like New York. Hospitals Step Up Disaster-Preparedness by Laura Landro in the Wall Street Journal describes how, despite $4 billion dollars in federal aid to state, local, and hospital preparedness since 2001, hospitals are still vastly unprepared for a mass number of casualties the likes of 9/11.
A bionic heart? Not quite-- but close. Today, the FDA approved the world’s first self-contained artificial heart for sale. While it’s not perfect (the heart extends the patient’s life an average of 5.2 months), this is at least a step in the right direction. With the technology we currently have, it will only be a matter of years until the artificial heart can extend life for years. However, thinking about this now, do we really want this? We already have hip replacements, knee replacements, and other body part replacements--- now a heart replacement too? We really will be bionic by the time the younger generation is ready for retirement! As Renata, one of the CareTALK Gals, always says—as long as the brain is still functional, Boomers will keep going back under the knife for replacement body parts.
The only issue we have is, like everything else in health care, the new technology available will be mostly for those who can afford it. According to the article in the Wall Street Journal FDA Approves Artificial Heart Sold by Abiomed by Sylvia Pagan Westphal, the artificial heart will cost $250K. What about those who can't afford it? Should they not be given a chance to live longer too?
Dr. Mark McClellan officially declared his plans to step down as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (the agency of the government responsible for Medicare and Medicaid programs). One of our internal sources says he [Dr. McClellan] was a better administrator than most (as you may know, we work closely with Medicare and HHS). However, one comment made gave us pause – he/she said it “would be nice if one [administrator] would stay and make training them worth the effort”. We looked into this and realized the tenures of administrators are very short--- the longest one lasting only 4 years (you can see a list of all the administrators here). We have had 24 administrators, including Dr. McClellan, since Medicare was formed in 1977. Perhaps this is the reason why it takes years to implement a change in the Medicare/Medicaid programs? As soon as one administrator gets into the groove of things in his new post, it's time to move on. This is very unfortunate.
Perhaps Mr. MedicareGuy will have a comment or two regarding this topic... :-)
A bionic heart? Not quite-- but close. Today, the FDA approved the world’s first self-contained artificial heart for sale. While it’s not perfect (the heart extends the patient’s life an average of 5.2 months), this is at least a step in the right direction. With the technology we currently have, it will only be a matter of years until the artificial heart can extend life for years. However, thinking about this now, do we really want this? We already have hip replacements, knee replacements, and other body part replacements--- now a heart replacement too? We really will be bionic by the time the younger generation is ready for retirement! As Renata, one of the CareTALK Gals, always says—as long as the brain is still functional, Boomers will keep going back under the knife for replacement body parts.
The only issue we have is, like everything else in health care, the new technology available will be mostly for those who can afford it. According to the article in the Wall Street Journal FDA Approves Artificial Heart Sold by Abiomed by Sylvia Pagan Westphal, the artificial heart will cost $250K. What about those who can't afford it? Should they not be given a chance to live longer too?
Dr. Mark McClellan officially declared his plans to step down as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (the agency of the government responsible for Medicare and Medicaid programs). One of our internal sources says he [Dr. McClellan] was a better administrator than most (as you may know, we work closely with Medicare and HHS). However, one comment made gave us pause – he/she said it “would be nice if one [administrator] would stay and make training them worth the effort”. We looked into this and realized the tenures of administrators are very short--- the longest one lasting only 4 years (you can see a list of all the administrators here). We have had 24 administrators, including Dr. McClellan, since Medicare was formed in 1977. Perhaps this is the reason why it takes years to implement a change in the Medicare/Medicaid programs? As soon as one administrator gets into the groove of things in his new post, it's time to move on. This is very unfortunate.
Perhaps Mr. MedicareGuy will have a comment or two regarding this topic... :-)
posted by CareTALKGals(tm) at 9/06/2006 12:41:00 AM
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