Nature as Nurture

Hello all fellas, I think this recent post is a great restart to my blog writing as I have not written any for almost 3 years. EAaah YES almost 3 YEARS. My special thanks to all visitors and followers for their hits and those who made me think about writing again.

I experienced various good and bad things in last couple of years (good one beats the bad one). Truly speaking as my personal experience if you are going through hard days the only thing to sooth you is NATURE and WALK, go for a walk because walking gives you energy and helps you feel active, energize and alive. It’s true that walk makes you happy and boosts your mood, walk reduces stress and anxiety and as effective like an antidepressants.   

A walk amongst nature, whether by the sea, river, hill, valley, meadow or wood, works wonders for the human spirit. So here are few quotes of different philosophers and my own amazingly captured shots during walk (captured from phone)!!

• In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
•  The earth laughs in flowers.
•  If you love a tree you will be more beautiful than before!
•  In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.
•  Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet. 
•  Nature's rhythms are a constant source of inspiration.

Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak. The beauty of nature lies in diversity. Yes marvelous nature, spectacular sunsets, earth, sky, flowers, magnificent vista, beauty in world and all those countless graceful beauties of universe that we forget to admire. 

Love and appreciate your surroundings!!

 

nature as nurture - captured by Asia

Evaluate Yourself During The Month Of Ramadan

“Fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may attain Taqwaa." (Q2:183)

The meaning of Ramadan for a true believer is Allah’s mercy. Ramadan is the month of patience, control, generosity and self evaluation and it gives the thought of rewards from Allah. During this Holy month all Muslims pursue and practice gentle acts that will give them inner satisfaction. The Messenger of Allah (saw) said, "When the month of Ramadan starts, the gates of the heaven are opened and the gates of Hell are closed and the devils are chained." (Imam Bukhari)

This Holy month entail some special actions and activities. It is all about to change daily routine and timetables so that one can obtain Purity, Taqwa and it will reward us hereafter (Akhirah). With the Quranic reference, "Ramadan is the (month) in which the Quran was sent down, as a guide to mankind and a clear guidance and judgment (so that mankind will distinguish from right and wrong)" (Q 2:183)

Certainly there are various groups regarding the month of Ramadan. Let’s see which group you belong to:

1. First Group: a group that consider Ramadan a month of restrictions and prevention only.
2. Second Group: a group that consider Ramadan as a month of food and drink.
3. Third Group: a group knows nothing of Ramadan except that it is obligatory and mandatory for all Muslims.
4. Fourth Group: a group who does not know Allah except and until the month of Ramadan came.
5. Fifth Group: a group who cannot wait for the arrival of Ramadan. But when it comes they roll up their sleeves even more and they work as hard as they can.
6. Sixth Group: a group that think it’s time of prohibitions from envy, desires and lust and follow the righteous and virtuous path.

People think more about the rewards on behalf of their actions. You may also think what is the reward of your virtuous deeds in the month of Ramadan? Allah said, “All good deeds are for the one who renders them, but fasting. Fasting is exclusively for me (Allah)”. The reward of every Fardh (Compulsory) Namaz is multiplied by seventy times. “aur tum apny Rab ki kon kon si naimat ko jhutkalov gaye"

During this month of Ramadan Allah Almighty makes it easy for Muslims to gain His blessings and mercy as this is the most appropriate month divided into Three Parts (Achraas):

• 1^st Ashra- Blessings/Mercy
• 2^nd Ashra- Forgiveness
• 3rd Ashra- Freedom from Fire

The Prophet (PBUH) said, “There are those who get nothing from their fast but hunger and thirst. There are those who get nothing from their nightly prayers but loss of sleep.” The basic purpose of Ramadan must be remembered which is to attain Taqwa and by doing maximum amount of righteous actions one must abstain from all sins and bad doings.

Now get ready and evaluate yourself and check which Group suits your Ramadan Thinking.

Happy Ramadan..!! :)

Medicaid expansion may lower the death rates

A study published under the New England Journal of Medicine says, “States that expanded their Medicaid program had a death rate lower than the states didn’t expand their Medicaid program.”

Medicaid is a government run healthcare program known as “CMS” (centers for Medicare and Medicaid services). “Under the program for poor and disabled people Medicaid is covering 60 million Americans currently. By intensifying the Medicaid under “ACA” (Affordable Care Act, 2010) Medicaid would be eligible to cover million more”, study by the Harvard School of Public Health researchers.The researchers concluded that overall, Medicaid expansions are linked with 6.1 percent decline in deaths.

Under the Affordable Care Act of 2010, states were required to expand their Medicaid programs, to cover additional 17 million recipients nationally. Last month’s Supreme Court ruling on the health care law, however, effectively granted states a pass on this expansion. The U.S. Supreme Court decided to make the Medicaid expansion optional. States can either accept or reject the expansion.

The Medicaid expansion, which is to take effect in 2014, is part of the federal health-reform law and the federal government has promised to pay for the entire expansion for the first three years, starting in 2014, and then decreasing the support to 90 percent over eight years, said Hatch,D-Des Moines, senator of the state Lowa.

Being paid for the expansion cost by the federal government States should raise concern about the failure to expand Medicaid to aid the people who are most at risk of not getting the care they actually need, or else it would be “financially irresponsible” to reject expansion of Medicaid. 

Medicaid Expansion

Future Trends in the Evolution of E-Health

Ehealth also written as e-health is a term for healthcare practice which is supported by electronic processes and communication. It can also be defined as electronic or digital data for the patients used by the physicians. E-health assures the support for health behavior changes and enables preventing and managing the chronic diseases.

When analyzing the e-health future some of the people say that it will adopt rapid changes. Others do not agree with the statement because they believe that not all the citizens are used to the idea of paying for the supply of medical information. Another reason for reluctance is suspicion that technologies used in e-health systems are not accessible and user friendly. The issue of data privacy is also a major hindrance for e-health future. In other words they think e-health technology is so complex that it will not be recommended in the future.

Besides different opinions the vision of paperless hospitals is still rising for the better quality of healthcare. The use of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and Electronic Health Records (EHR) is significantly increasing. Electronic data is supposed to be the essential parts of the healthcare centers.

In future the need is to build thorough legal framework to keep the electronic data secure. To fully implement the e-health technology it is desirable to reduce the discrepancies among population. Another future trend which is most reasonable for e-health is that it will be able to monitor and treat the chronic diseases, thus justifying the workload of the medical centers and reducing the constant travelling for hospitals and medical centers.

Evolution of e-health in today's world

Interoperability – Essential for EHR Societal Benefits

“Interoperability is one of the fundamental constituents required to derive societal benefits from Healthcare IT”

Interoperability is a major outcome that healthcare professionals are expecting from every healthcare IT product. What does interoperability mean?  We can state interoperability as a connected healthcare system. It connects healthcare system in a way to make real-time patient data available to every medical practice anywhere. For instance, if Mrs. Johnson moves from Florida to California, her new provider does not need to worry about whether she is allergic to antibiotics and what is her medication history. He does not need to carry out her laboratory tests again. All the information will be available to him online via EHR to EHR link. This is interoperability, and this is what we want to achieve in long-run via different healthcare IT products.

Janice Walker, a healthcare IT researcher, along with her colleagues wrote a paper “The Value of Health Care Information Exchange and Interoperability”. In the paper, she has discussed how interoperability can transform the health industry and produce impressive societal benefits. According to her, seventy-seven billion dollars can be saved from healthcare information exchange and interoperability.  Some of the benefits of interoperability she discussed are:

• With interoperable healthcare system, providers always have instant access to required information at the point of care
• It gives convenience and choice to patients to visit any medical practice or provider
• It gives better and valid data for medical research
• It reduces medical errors, improves patient care, and reduces costs

Electronic Health Records have various features that aid interoperability. EHR features such as e-prescription, redundant test reminders, lab connectivity and drug interaction checks, etc. have contributed significantly in creating interoperable healthcare system. There is still much to do for healthcare IT companies in order to have a complete interoperable system for realizing societal benefits of healthcare IT.

Fig. Interoperability – Essential for EHR Societal Benefits

Medical ID Theft: Danger for patients & physicians for all time

According to a recent study by Pamela Lewis Dolan, medical identify theft has become the fastest growing type of identity theft in the world. Medical identity theft became common on the radar of the Medicare, an investigative concern for many other agencies. The study also pointed out that each year approximately 2 million people become victim of identity theft with more than 5,300 health professionals have listed themselves in a federal database that tracks medical identity theft. In recent years, it has become the fastest-growing type of identity theft in the world, according to reports.

According to study Medical ID theft is categorized into two types:

1. The kind that involves a patient's identity being compromised
2. The kind that involves the physician's professional identifiers being stolen.

Both medical ID types could bring professional or financial harm to healthcare professionals. According to a study physicians could be suffering from offences of the Health Insurance Mobility and Responsibility Act if they did not effectively secure the information from being stolen. “Many people don’t know what medical ID theft is, so educating patients on the problems and how to detect it is well worth a physician’s time and the biggest key to detection is education.”, said Shantanu Agrawal, Medical Director for the Center for Program Integrity at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

“The key is for health care organizations to have their own anti-fraud procedures and to be vigilant about using them.” said Ponemon. He further elaborated that if you lose your credit card, for example, you can call the bank and they will cancel your current card within seconds and send you a new card with a new number. Use of medical identification isn’t as simple to stop.

Fig. Medical ID Theft

Meaningful Use of EHR

Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a comprehensive and computerized healthcare record management system. The main objective of Electronic Health Record (EHR) software is to electronically collect health information, as all information is recorded digitally. Electronic Health Record (EHR) include various types of information such as demographics of a particular area, medical history of patients, lab test results, patients statistics like weight, age, medical record, insurance details etc.

The Medicare and Medicaid EHR provide incentive payments to professionals to implement, upgrade and demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology. Meaningful Use is the term to describe the specific set of benchmarks that an eligible provider or hospital needs to meet to be able to qualify for the incentive program. Meaningful Use is a multi-year, staged approach that outlines specific requirements and threshold which will raise the bar over time.

Meaningful Use is measured in stages and each stage represents a level of adoption.There are two main components to receiving incentives:

• Using a certified EHR
• Demonstrating meaningful use of EHR

Over the course of the next five years (2011-2015) the criteria for meaningful use will be divided into three stages:

Stage 1 (Years 2011-2012)

Stage 2 (2013-2014 tentatively)

Stage 3 (2015 tentatively)

The criteria will grow more severe in the later stages.

Here is a summary of the three meaningful use stages: 

·         Stage One: 

      The first stage is simply a question of quantity; the CMS wants doctors and hospitals to report how often the EHRs are being utilized, in terms of a percentage of patients.

·         Stage Two: 

      The second stage requires doctors to begin using the data contained in the EHRs when they diagnose and treat patients.

·         Stage Three: 

      The most important stage is the third, in which the CMS expects to give patients tools for self-management, and get caregivers to use the EHRs to identify when trends become national concerns, and improve overall population health.

There is no doubt that the Meaningful Use program has energized the health care industry, hopefully this energy will result in the innovation necessary to improve our healthcare delivery system.