Quality patient care not met by blanket screenings, warns UCSF/SFVAMC physician
Even as America's medical centers are being urged to use mathematical measures to describe quality care, a UCSF/San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center physician is warning against the "pitfalls" of confusing such measurement with actual quality, in an opinion piece appearing in the May 26 issue of ....... In the article, Louise Walter, MD, UCSF assistant professor of medicine in the geria...SFVAMC researchers distinguish dementias using brain imaging
Until now, scientists have been unable to distinguish between dementia caused by Alzheimer's disease and that caused by poor blood flow to the brain. But, researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center have now used a combination of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a related technique knows as MR spectroscopy to differentiate between the two kinds of dementia. Their work offers hope of im...Medicare shortchanges initial doctor visit, SFVAMC study says
During an older patient's first visit to the doctor, nearly 40 percent of the time spent is not reimbursed by Medicare, including evaluation of cognition and mood, and discussions of exercise, nutrition, and preventive services, according to a study from a San Francisco VA Medical Center researcher....... "With older patients you really can't ignore these services," said the study's lead author E......African American and Hispanic senior citizens who lack prescription drug benefits are three times more likely than white seniors to cut back on taking their medications, according to a study from researchers at San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Although income level and medication cost also influenced decisions to restrict medication, ethnicity was an independent risk factor, th...