Health Watch Blog - Part 5

Iris Scanners: A Medical Assistant’s Best Friend?

Could Medical Assistants One Day Greet Patients with an Iris Scan?

It sounds like something you’d see alongside flying cars and tube transportation on The Jetsons, but iris scanning could be coming to a doctor’s office near you sooner than you’d think. Why is this noteworthy for medical assistants? Well, one of the primary tasks that medical assistants perform every day is maintaining patient records, and iris scanning could become one of the biggest advances in medical records technology since records started moving from paper copies to computers.

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Man Has 132-Pound Scrotum Fixed; Now Has 1-Inch Penis

Man Has 132-Pound Scrotum Fixed; Now Has 1-Inch Penis

It’s like a game of Would You Rather has come to life for a Las Vegas man. The dilemma: would you rather have a 130-pound scrotum or a one-inch penis? Poor Wesley Warren Jr., 49, has experienced both physical abnormalities in the span of just a few years. His genital issues arose in 2008 after he accidentally hit his testicles with his leg while sleeping. After the excruciating pain died down, he awoke the next morning to find that his scrotum was the size of a soccer ball.

His medical condition is called scrotal lymphedema (also known as scrotal elephantiasis), and it occurs when lymph fluid accumulates in the scrotum and the tissue swells, causing the testicle sack to increase dramatically in size. Warren believes his case arose because his sleeping mishap damaged his lymphatic system, triggering the buildup of fluid, but urologist Dr. Joel Gelman doesn’t buy that theory — although he himself struggles to find a medical explanation.

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Top 10 Medical Reasons Why People Visit Doctors

Top 10 Medical Reasons Why People Visit Doctors

Just like it’s important for store owners to know which merchandise customers buy the most, it’s important for doctors and other medical professionals to know which conditions patients most often want treated. This knowledge can help a medical staff allocate resources and be prepared to answer questions, provide treatment and keep informed of the latest studies and techniques associated with their patients’ needs. Luckily, the world-renowned Mayo Clinic recently made these tasks easier when it published the results of a study that gathered data on 142,377 patients in Olmsted County, Minnesota between the years of 2005 and 2009 to determine the medical reasons why people most frequently visit the doctor. Here are the top 10 conditions the study found:

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Medical Assistants Need to Prepare for Electronic Health Records

Medical Assistants Need to Prepare for Electronic Health Records

Beginning in 2010, the federal government made available nearly $1.2 billion in incentives to get hospitals and doctors to move away from paper medical charts and record keeping and implement electronic health record (EHR) keeping on a “meaningful” level.

Three years later, the endeavor is paying off, with the number of hospitals using electronic records tripling since 2010. Rural hospitals in particular have jumped on the e-bandwagon, with about 33% having gone electronic in 2012 compared to only about 10% in 2010. Doctors’ offices haven’t been quite as responsive to the incentives, but they still have increased their EHR usage by 12%, from 26% in 2010 to 38% in 2012.

Understandably, it’s the smaller hospitals and medical practices — those with fewer records and thus less need in their minds to adapt — that have been most hesitant to move to electronic health records.

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5 of the Most Over-Diagnosed Diseases

5 of the Most Over-Diagnosed Diseases

Over-diagnosis occurs when doctors or other medical professionals declare that patients have a disease or condition that they don’t have. While odds are that most over-diagnoses are honest mistakes caused by similarities in symptoms between various medical conditions, there is reason to believe there is some level of intentional steering toward certain medications that rake in billions of dollars for big pharmaceutical companies. Whatever the reason, here are some of the most over-diagnosed diseases and medical disorders.

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