• Mobile Application Development 

It’s now possible to integrate mobile application solutions to aid A Comprehensive Guide To Improve Behavioral Health Integration

Sometimes, people don’t seek help because the services aren’t easily accessible, perhaps due to a lack of knowledge or visibility. But, this is why it’s becoming increasingly essential to incorporate behavioral health into general medical practice. 

Behavioral health integration (BHI) initiatives aim to increase access to mental health services. It should be noted, however, that there’s still much room for improvement. That being said, here’s a complete guide to improving behavioral health integration:

• Data Analytics 

If you want to personalize patient experience, data analytics is one essential tool you can have at your disposal. Understand that you’ll be dealing with different people with varying health issues. Your solutions or services should be adaptable enough to address a plethora of issues, and this isn’t an easy task. 

As a result, data analytics is critical to improving behavioral health integration because it generates valuable insights that may be applicable in other aspects of implementing a specific plan. Analytics reveals the results of various case studies, surveys, and questionnaires related to behavioral science. 

in BHI, thanks to technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). Your goal with BHI is to create applications that’ll benefit mental health patients. It’s important to note that you’ll need to create or design data-driven applications for them to be effective. This is the reason why data analytics is critical to BHI.  

• Build Flexibility Into Your BHI Model

As with many other industries, trends within the medical industry are constantly changing. So, it’s extremely vital that companies are adaptable enough to changes in the medical landscape. But, it starts with baking flexibility into the BHI model that you use. 

• Virtual Services 

If you want the best results or outcomes from BHI, you should make the experience as human as possible. Fortunately, technology allows healthcare providers to streamline how they communicate with their patients. So, it’d be best if you had virtual communication tools that allow people to regularly form meaningful connections with you. 

• Continuous Training 

If this BHI is going to work, it should be an organized effort. There’s a high likelihood that completely new workflows will be introduced and may entail structural changes in how a practice operates.  

BHI aims to adequately prepare all components of your organization to address both physical and mental health issues. This change will necessitate some adjustments in how your doctor approaches patient issues. Therefore, having appropriate training programs would be ideal. If everyone knows how a particular system functions, it’s better and easier to manage. 

Conclusion 

Although not all healthcare providers are using BHI, it's worth noting that there’s a lot of evidence suggesting that this integration is highly advantageous. It makes sense for primary care providers to use BHI in light of the current mental health crisis. Moreover, recognize that collaboration is necessary regardless of the model being employed, and that implementation is essential for proper BHI. 

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A Guide To Third Next Available Appointment In Clinics

Are you visiting the doctor but needing to wait for the next latest appointment available? With many patients seeking medical consultation from health practitioners, it’s no surprise that getting the newest appointment at your convenience is a challenge.

Fortunately, a system called Third Next Available Appointment (TNAA) can eliminate the delay in setting your next available appointment in any health center.  

What Is The Third Next Available Appointment? 

Coined in 2003 by Dr. Mark Murray, a family practice physician, the TNAA is a statistic that doctors can use to measure the number of waiting days for a patient to get an appointment for a physical examination.   

Providers view TNAA as the third open slot on their calendars. It helps them understand the ease for a client to get an appointment with them.  

How Is It Measured?

The industry encourages healthcare providers to measure TNAA regularly. Initially, the assessment of TNAA can be done at least once a week to capture a clear picture of the clinic’s patient access. From there, the practitioners can work on how to lower the numbers.

Generally, the more frequently a center measures TNAA, the more information they gain to gauge and reflect on the system backlogs and the necessary changes to make. Once the clinic hits the stability of zero to one day, the measurement of TNAA can then be performed monthly. 

The Waiting Time For Appointments 

Studies show that the decrease in wait time directly impacts the no-shows and cancellation of medical appointments. It means that for health providers to cater and deliver their services efficiently to many patients is, first and foremost, to open a wider door for patients to access their services through effective, faster, and smoother appointment settings. 

When providers incorporate these metrics, they lower or even eliminate chance appointments, making the availability measures more dependable. Ultimately, the main objective of centers and providers who use the TNAA is to make their services more accessible to patients on the same day or zero (for primary care providers) while allowing two days for specialty providers.  

How Does TNAA Benefit Patients? 

At first, patients might not understand why providers use the third next available appointment metric and not go with the first two. However, they should realize that a TNAA is still possible to be set up on the same day they request the booking, given that there are three openings on that day based on how the TNAA measure is calculated. This method benefits the patients in many ways, such as saving time, better patient experience, and better and equal access to their health needs. 

Closing Thoughts 

The modern patient demands medical access right when and where they need it. The provider’s ability to meet the metrics set by TNAA is a signal for success in meeting patients’ demand for better access to health services. In the medical industry, the main focus is patient care, and the TNAA allows clients a bit more control over the medical assistance they need and deserve.

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What a difference an Annual Physical Exam makes

This year, my PCP decided to go 'Concierge' and we got called by the PA for our annual physical. Makes no sense to join a concierge practice, as we have access to and are surrounded by physicians of all specialties at work. We went for our blood work. and had all manner of tests. What stuck out was that we were at the 2nd percentile of wellness for our age group. So we went for the laying on of hands. I should add, that I had undergone a medical insurance exam just weeks before. I had also cleaned and tested my stethoscope, probably less than three months earlier. So when the PA noted a 'very loud murmur', it was not unreasonable for me to grab her stethoscope, yelling 'give me that'. And there it was - one of the loudest earliest diastolic murmurs, I ever heard. She sent out an electronic referral to one of the largest cardiovascular groups in town. I came home and called for an appointment. I was told they had not yet received the referral. They would call me as soon as the referral arrived. OVER THREE WEEKS LATER, I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE CALL. MORE ON THIS LATER.

Fortunately, my daughter is a veterinary cardiologist. She found the murmur equally impressive. She did a mobile ECHO that demonstrated a 5.4 cm aortic aneurysm extending from the root of the aorta to the innominate artery. After brief discussions with the cardioogist on-call at my hospital and more specifically, my very experienced surgery colleague, we opted to go for a CTA to 'get more data'. The CTA confirmed the aneurysm. We decided to transfer to the University Hospital, where two days later, I underwent a BioBentall procedure with replacement of the aortic valve, root and anterior aortic arch. I am still waiting to the referral!!

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Multiple Drugs Advance for Fatty Liver Disease

Laird Harrison

November 13, 2018

SAN FRANCISCO — Although numerous drugs for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) have shown positive results in phase 2 clinical trials, the cure might lie in combinations of drugs with different mechanisms, experts say.

In fact, curing NASH might turn out to be as challenging as curing type 2 diabetes, said Sidney Barritt IV, MD, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Unlike hepatitis C, which can be treated with the blockbuster antiviral drugs that have recently proven so effective, NASH is more complicated because there are no effective drugs to treat it.

With the obesity epidemic, NASH is increasingly common, and results from phase 2 trials attracted throngs of conference-goers with questions here at The Liver Meeting 2018.

Some of the results look encouraging, Barritt told Medscape Medical News. "I think they're clinically significant."

Phase 2 results have been positive for MGL-3196 (Madrigal Pharmaceuticals), GS-9674 (Gilead Sciences), NGM282 (NGM Bio), arachidyl amido cholanoic acid (Aramchol, Galmed Pharmaceuticals), tropifexor (Novartis), and VK2809 (Viking Therapeutics).

All the drugs reduced liver fat measured with MRI-derived proton density fat fraction (PDFF). The drugs also improved various other measures of the disease, such as NASH Activity Score, fibrosis, and alanine aminotransferase.

These NASH agents add to the four already in phase 3 trials: obeticholic acid (Ocaliva, Intercept Pharmaceuticals), elafibranor (Genfit), selonsertib (Gilead), and cenicriviroc (Tobira Therapeutics).

But no clear winner has emerged from these studies. It's hard to know how well the biomarkers measured in trials will protect patients from sickness and death, Barritt explained. NASH destroys the liver gradually; most of its victims die from the heart disease or cancer that results from this damage, which takes decades.

"The real test is going to be real-world efficacy," he said. "Are the drugs going to have the impact that we expect them to have based on the clinical trial data?"

The development of NASH is mostly related to lifestyle factors, such as overeating and lack of exercise, so there is no obvious target for a drug as there is with a virus. As a result, drug makers have focused on various aspects of inflammation, fat accumulation, and scar formation.

Like obeticholic acid, GS-9674 and tropifexor are farnesoid X receptor (FXR) agonists, which help regulate bile acids, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism, and insulin sensitivity. They also play a role in growth and regeneration after liver injury.

MGL-3196 and VK2809 are thyroid hormone-receptor beta agonists designed to mediate the effects of the thyroid hormone on the liver, on low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol, on triglycerides, on fatty liver, and on insulin sensitivity.

Arachidyl amido cholanoic acid inhibits stearoyl CoA desaturase. It has a "dual mode of action on liver fibrosis, downregulation of steatosis, and a direct effect on hepatic stellate cells, the human collagen-producing cells," according to Galmed Pharmaceuticals.

The potential for all these approaches was evident in the phase 2 results presented. But the most effective treatments might be a combination of drugs that act on different pathways, said Keyur Patel, BM, from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who is a GS-9674 investigator.

In a separate phase 2 trial now underway, Gilead is testing the combination of GS-9674 plus selonsertib, a small-molecule inhibitor of apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 (ASK1), plus GS-9676, an acetyl-CoA carboxylase inhibitor, Patel told Medscape Medical News.

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Early Transplant in Alcoholic Hepatitis Feasible

• by Michael Smith, North American Correspondent, MedPage Today October 23, 2017
• WASHINGTON -- Selected patients with a failing liver owing to alcoholic hepatitis, but who have not been abstinent for several months, can still have "acceptable" short-term survival after transplant, a researcher said here.

In a retrospective analysis of patients in 12 transplant centers, 1-year survival was 94% over a median follow-up of 1.6 years, according to Brian Lee, MD, of the University of California San Francisco.

But the survival rate fell to 84% after 3 years, largely owing to continued alcohol use after the transplant, Lee said at the Liver Meeting, the annual conference of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).

"Sustained alcohol was the strongest predictor of post-transplant death," Lee said.

There are no effective therapies for long-term survival in severe alcoholic hepatitis, which has about a 70% mortality rate after 6 months, Lee noted. A transplant can be life saving, he added.

But most U.S. centers won't perform a transplant unless the patient has been abstinent for at least 6 months, although there is recent research suggesting that an early procedure -- ignoring the 6-month rule -- can be beneficial in selected patients.

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Concierge Medicine:  6-11-2017

The day after my friend sent me a link to this NY Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/business/economy/high-end-medical-care.html , I met a real life concierge internist at a meeting. Full disclosure, I told him that I ran a website FindADoc.Com and that concierge physicians looking to attract patients could do worse that become Featured Docs on FindADoc. He has a patient base of 200 souls and charges $3000 a year, which I quickly translated to $600k a year. He has minimal overheads. No nurses, NP or PA. Patients have direct access to his cell phone 24/7. When I told him about this article, and the fact that the charge is up to $80,000 a patient or family, I could feel his jaw drop as he made the quick calculation!

In truth, this really is nothing new. At a well-known hospital in the Upper East Side, NY, much larger sums of money change hands, just not quite like that, or so openly. For $700m, you can build a new Pavillion with your name on it. Or for $300 million, change the name of the hospital and medical school to yours! That way, when you call up with an ingrowing toe-nail, guess how long you mind have to wait to have it fixed!!

The Obesity Epidemic

The obesity epidemic now involves all 50 States and most of the globe. Tme metabolic syndrome is the most common manifestation of this epidemic.

Diet and exercise are the best cure. We anticipate significant interaction with our users as we all try and work out the most effective ways of keeping fit and healthy.