Healthcare Blog

 The shortage of healthcare professionals is a global issue, as many regions struggle to maintain an adequate workforce with the necessary skills to provide essential services. This imbalance between supply and demand leads to significant challenges in healthcare delivery.   Consequences of shortage of healthcare professionals Some consequences of this shortage is reduced access to quality care and limited health services.  Limited healthcare  professionals result in longer wait times and delayed treatments, sometimes may potentially worsening patient conditions. Additionally, healthcare costs may rise as hospitals and other facilities resort to hiring temporary or traveling staff, increasing expenses for both patients and insurers.  The quality of care may also decline due to overworked healthcare professionals experiencing high levels of stress and burnout. Ensuring a sustainable workforce requires comprehensive planning that prioritizes both patient need...

  About 8 in 10 users search the internet for health information, and 74% of those people use social media. Considering this shift in where the population goes for medical information, I believe there should be a change in regulations and requirements for what goes into online medical content, especially related to dietary supplements.  In 2023, senators introduced the Protecting Patients from Deceptive Drug Ads Online Act to empower the FDA to issue warnings and impose fines for false or misleading drug information posted on line by social media influencers and telehealth companies. However, this legislation does not apply to dietary supplements, only prescription drugs. This type of enforcement makes sense, but there should be something similar for dietary supplements, considering they are far easier to access and are often advertised with broad claims related to weight loss, energy, sleep, or hormonal balance. A review of 100 Instagram posts from March 2021 about suppleme...

 As we know, in the United States, we have one of the highest rates of maternal death out of all the developed countries. There are, unfortunately, many factors that play a role in this, but one of importance, that could help prevent maternal death, is having a doula in the room, especially for women of color (particularly Black women) and those who have low socioeconomic status; these populations are specifically effected due to the institutionalized racism in hospitals as well as insurance and health literacy status. There are a lot of people, especially those with more conservative views, that feel doulas are a more “hippie” approach to childbirth and you just need to “listen to the doctor”, my parents being one of these types of people, unfortunately. However, there has been data showing how much doulas can affect the maternal outcomes after birth, including preventing unnecessary or unwanted procedures to occur. For example, one study showed that women who had a doula had 52.9...

Credit to Anastasiia Gudantova    Healthcare and the costs that come with it are probably the most jarring thing to those outside of the US. With the US multiple-payor system, there are many layers to the maze that of which is billing the patient. That is not to mention the many CMS guidelines that help set the base standard of billing in the US. Even as I do research for this blog, I find out there are different markets for insurance you can explore to figure out what you are eligible to buy from.  Before getting into the markets, you have to consider the plans. For all intents and purposes, "in-network" means the provider specifically has a contract with a third-party insurance company: 1) EPOs EPO (Exclusive Provider Organizations) is a plan where you have to go to anyone in-network to be covered. 2) HMOs HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) is a plan that focuses on prevention and wellness with integrated care but it's limited. For example, if you had a Blue Cross Bl...

Physician-Assisted Suicide:  Taking Health Into Your Own Hands By Ziana Collins Introduction: While trying to find topics to write about for this entry, I tried to look back on topics I had learned about and didn't completely understand at first. Upon this reflection, I dug up one of my core memories from freshman year of high school. To set the stage: my family was an active participant in our local parish, a Roman Catholic church. As a child and teenager, this meant mass every week and youth group at least once a week. At these youth group sessions we'd talk about what you would typically expect from a religious organization, but one week we deviated from that to discuss the hot-topic (at the time) of euthanasia. If you can recall, around 2014 there was a patient with a terminal diagnosis who was choosing to end their own life due to their diagnosis. This was all over the news and was the first time I heard about physician-assisted suicide, and ultimately opened me up to idea...

     As a class, we learned about many different healthcare systems across the world. Every country seems to have their own approach to tackling the issue, shaped by culture, history, and a myriad of other factors. What surprised me the most was the variety of countries which operate a universal healthcare system, as I had previously associated this with more developed, first world countries. Upon watching everyone's presentations, it is clear that no such correlations exist; nations all across the world have succeeded in building these types of programs regardless of economic status.      The argument echoed over and over again is that universal healthcare is a totally impractical and unfeasible proposal within the United States. At this point in time, I find this argument to be somewhat invalidated. It would no doubt be a massive logistical challenge to implement, and there may be more barriers to overcome than there would be in smaller countries with a m...