Grand Rounds: Best of Health and Medical Blogging

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Grand Rounds blog car­ni­val, the week­ly edi­tion of what’s best in the health and med­ical blo­gos­phere. This week, twen­ty four blog­gers share data, insights, ques­tions, reflec­tions and more. Enjoy!

On Improv­ing Care

Dr. Robert Oren­stein at ACP Hos­pi­tal­ist: thor­ough­ly clean­ing patien­t’s rooms can dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduce health­care-acquired infec­tions (HAI).

Dr. Wal­ter van den Broek at Shock­MD: avail­abil­i­ty bias is one rea­son for diag­nos­tic errors- which is why con­sult­ing super spe­cial­ists too ear­ly is not with­out risk.

Mar­cus Escobe­do at the John A. Hart­ford Foun­da­tion’s blog: are tomor­row’s doc­tors learn­ing what they’ll need to know to care for an aging population?

Steven Gross­man at FDAzil­la: should the FDA enforce the high­est stan­dards, or not?

Bob Vine­yard at Insure­Blog:  will Wal­mart rev­o­lu­tion­ize pri­ma­ry health­care services?

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez at Sharp­Brains: when will main play­ers in behav­ioral and men­tal health real­ize that enhanc­ing brain func­tion­al­i­ty is a crit­i­cal outcome?

On Health IT

David Williams at Health Busi­ness Blog: here’s an inter­view with the for­mer head of the Office of Nation­al Coor­di­na­tor of Health IT on why the 21st cen­tu­ry is the elec­tron­ic age, and why med­i­cine can’t iso­late itself.

Dr. Steve Daviss at Clin­i­cal Psy­chi­a­try News blog:  on why an iPad loaded with elec­tron­ic health records (EHRs) will become“the new black bag”.

David Har­low at Health­Blawg: will more proac­tive enforce­ment of the HIPAA pri­va­cy, secu­ri­ty and breach noti­fi­ca­tion rules change the facts on the ground?

On Health Information

Jessie Gru­man, PhD, at What It Takes blog: unfor­tu­nate­ly, pub­lic report­ing on health care qual­i­ty is still too geared toward those in the indus­try, instead of the pub­lic at large.

Dr. Elaine Schat­tner at Med­ical Lessons: No doubt you can engage the pub­lic via anec­dotes, but what if those anec­dotes are more mis­lead­ing than inspiring?

Louise at Col­orado Health Insur­ance Insid­er: being a savvy health­care con­sumer is tougher than it sounds.

Pas­cale Mich­e­lon, PhD, at Sharp­Brains: may biofeed­back and brain train­ing help pre­vent depres­sion?

On Health

Dr. Val Jones at Get­Bet­ter­Health: why physi­cians and par­ents should protest Delta Air­lines’ deci­sion to ignore the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics’ warn­ing let­ter and con­tin­ue to show anti-vac­cine videos.

Dr. Gary Small at Sharp­Brains: what does a neu­ro­sci­en­tist do to enhance his own mem­o­ry and brain fit­ness (nope, not gink­go biloba).

Dr. Aaron Beck at Beck Insti­tute blog: on the syn­er­gis­tic effect of med­ica­tion and cog­ni­tive ther­a­py.

ACP Internist: may no-smok­ing rules be inad­ver­tent­ly plac­ing patients at risk?

Jerome Schultz, PhD, at Sharp­Brains: can stress change brain chem­istry and there­fore brain func­tion?

On Doc­tors

Edwin Leap, MD: “the great gift of med­i­cine in gen­er­al, is that it intro­duces us to loss ear­ly in life… The ter­ri­ble thing, the beau­ti­ful thing, is the way we can become bet­ter and more com­pas­sion­ate by our prox­im­i­ty to pain”.

Scott Bar­ry Kauf­man, PhD, at Sci­Am: If core men­tal abil­i­ties for great per­for­mance can be iden­ti­fied and devel­oped, why don’t we pay more attention?

Dr. Charles: here are the win­ners of the  The Charles Prize for Poet­ry, select­ed from over 150 poems entered.

White Turk: why “Inten­sive Care Unit is a lot eas­i­er to take if you stop tak­ing your­self seri­ous­ly and start to see how ridicu­lous every­thing is.”

On…hmmmmm

Tara Smith, Ph.D. at Aeti­ol­o­gy: does bes­tial­i­ty increas­es risk of penile cancer?

And that’s it for today. Learned any­thing new? Please share your impres­sions via social media but­tons below.

Next week’s Grand Rounds will be host­ed at Dia­betesMine (have you heard about the blue cir­cle?).