Yet today, we find ourselves dismantling these hard-won achievements. Extraordinary cuts to disease prevention, research, and surveillance programs signal a large-scale reversal of a successful strategy of containment and elimination. Such an irresponsible pivot risks opening the door for vaccine-preventable diseases, drug-resistant infections and new pandemics to reemerge with devastating force. If we continue down this path, the consequences will be felt not just in developing nations, but across the industrialized world, where health systems already are under strain.

It could take years to regain the high ground we currently hold against infectious diseases; many countries may never get there again. While pursuing modernization and efficiencies in the global health system is vital, randomly eliminating or suppressing funding and institutions we rely on to develop the pipeline of new vaccines, therapeutics, and practices to fight tomorrow’s pathogens only weakens us further. Our most dangerous disease threats constantly evolve, probe our weaknesses, and exploit natural opportunities to strike.

The attack on America’s preeminent medical research institutions and the innovations they fuel severely undermines our ability to counter disease while degrading the very talent we need to protect us: the next generation of scientists and medical researchers.

Many prominent health leaders are sounding the alarm, but until a coalition of the informed begins to take shape, we may as well be screaming into the wind. Unless a concerted effort is made to change course, the infrastructure, jobs, institutional knowledge, and recruitment of future health experts that constitute one of humanity’s greatest achievements may be dismantled. Surely by now we have learned that research and disease prevention is dramatically less costly than deploying the vast resources necessary to respond to a new outbreak.

Here’s one path forward: U.S. health communicators, advocates, and leaders should coordinate framing the issues to state and congressional lawmakers who stand to lose the most from the current health funding policy direction. Many of the places contributing the most to America’s competitive advantage in biomedical research are in conservative districts that receive funding from the NIH and other public sources.

Similarly, emerging diseases often pose the highest threat to people battling chronic diseases or living in areas underserved by health services, which means all of us are affected, regardless of economic status or ideological belief. People at every level of the health system—from practitioners to patients, researchers to drugmakers—should be energized to speak with one voice and let policymakers know that retreat in the face of defeatable disease threats is the wrong direction for the U.S.

Disease is humanity’s greatest enemy, and it constantly hovers at our doorstep. Do we pretend not to hear it knocking, or do we recognize its dangers and act?

That’s exactly the moment we are facing now. Our situation is complicated by the fact that our most important defenses – biomedical research and disease prevention infrastructure – are being demolished before our eyes. It will take real courage to act, but we must marshal our resources, defying the ambivalence and dismissiveness that make us more vulnerable to looming infectious disease threats. This is no time to retreat.

The post A Turning Point for Global Health appeared first on Medika Life.

Medika Life was given an opportunity to interview four HIMSS leaders – to hear more about plans for the Orlando global meeting and the priorities staff embrace year-round. It was clear that HIMSS staff see their roles as a professional responsibility and largely a public health mission.

Here are the #HIMSS24 Content Highlights:

• HIMSS Connect
• Keynotes
• Policy Issues
• Nursing and Informatics
• Start-Ups & Entrepreneurs

Gil Bashe, Editor-in-Chief, Medika Life: The health industry has many essential trade associations of different types that we know of.  PhRMA and BIO, and to some extent, HIMSS, could be seen that way, but it has grassroots membership. There are certainly very senior people in our industry who are HIMSS members. You could say HIMSS has grassroots and grasstops affiliations.

HIMSS – NOW 125,000 Strong

Christine Buck, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, HIMSS:  Yes.  That’s right.  Let me offer context for Medika Life readers about HIMSS.  HIMSS is a 60-year-old organization and a global society that has evolved and changed.  It’s inspiring to see our community working to find solutions, thinking together as opposed to thinking in silos. And that’s what we need. We need to be the bridge. We need to be a transparent provider of democratized information.

Our membership has grown to more than 125,000 members. We landed on “Creating Tomorrow’s Health” because we are about the future, about bringing together individuals who care about generative AI and the patient. This is the difference between where we think about solutions not for the sake of an organization but the ultimate audience we all serve – patients. So that’s an exciting responsibility.

Bashe: I would very much appreciate knowing a bit about the fact that when we get together in two weeks in Orlando, some of the policy conversations will occur, from modernizing HIPAA to cyber security aspects. HIMSS is at the forefront of community building. It also tries to create a safe environment so that information can be used to improve the human condition. Could you share a little bit about that?

Tom Leary, SVP, Head of Government Relations, HIMSS:  Our policy initiatives are set by the board of directors and society members.  We are focusing on health equity. Everything needs to be pointed toward health equity so that we can leverage technology and data science to improve the human condition you’re talking about.

Specifically, concerning global conferences, we’re anticipating a lot of conversations in several key areas.

Artificial intelligence has just overtaken all the discussions around public policy. Several camps are starting to form. Some think AI is the panacea for the patient’s condition, provider burden, or any other categories we might want to discuss or that stakeholders might want to discuss.  The other camp is the fearful individuals- whether AI is taking their jobs or AI is making decisions where providers are not in the middle. It’s those kinds of conversations around artificial intelligence that we anticipate having.

Cyber security and data privacy.  The more that health care remains in the top five targeted sectors, we would fully anticipate a lot of conversation around how to maintain a high degree of vigilance and preparedness, and, quite frankly, both policymakers and our members want to talk about it, such as  “What do you know that I need to know so that I can better prepare my organization against a cyber-attack?”

Data modernization is a third key area for us that we anticipate a lot of dialogue on, particularly from the US perspective. What we saw from the global pandemic was a borderless global issue. Much investment in some areas, particularly in the clinical setting around technology advancements, resulted in excellent preparedness. However, we are still dealing with many paper-based approaches in the realm of public health and population health. So, how do you modernize the public health community?  We are facilitating ideas and conversations to address global public health priorities.

We’re very excited. A critical development in the last 48 hours is that the CDC Director, Dr. Mandy Cohen, will be the first CDC Director and, in close to 15 years, the only Director to address any HIMSS audience. More specifically, the top session that she’ll be sharing with the office of the National Coordinator is on the whole issue of data monetization. Those are three key areas that we’re looking at, particularly from a conference perspective. We can also get into some other year-round topics.

Challenges of Technology Linked to Patient Care

Bashe: I will want someone to address year-round topics because I see the annual meeting as the beginning or culmination of the year. I do have a question regarding innovation because we often talk about information. Still, I often find that many people from the digital health innovation sector attend HIMSS annually and at the national meeting.

Some of them come from chief technology offices or chief information offices or people involved in information services, or they’re people developing systems in terms of augmented intelligence or Chat GPT, the application of higher technologies to synthesize information.

Other people are looking at the integration of tools. Smart wearables, all these intelligent applications. I would very much appreciate your perspective as HIMSS leaders in talking a little bit about the role that HIMSS plays in supporting digital health innovation that collects and shares information.

Toni Laracuente, Senior Vice President & Global Head of Analytics, HIMSS:  My background in the clinical space is as a thoracic ICU nurse, which was my specialty for many years, and then I moved into quality improvements and Hospital Administration.

In the early days of electronic medical records, what you just described with nurses saying, “Oh, I don’t have time to look at that,” those were kind of the dark days of digital health, when systems were designed primarily as billing systems or departmental systems that were very focused on billing but had limited functionality and workflow process for the clinician, for the nurses, the doctors, physical therapists, and any other kind of ancillary professional service the patient may encounter.

Our practice within HIMSS analytics is genuinely focused on digital transformation. When I say digital transformation, I’m talking about the innovative, intentional, and clinically designed use of data and technology systems.

But people first, tech last. We look at people, processing data, and then technology because our approach is for digital transformation to be successful; it has to be person-centric and focused on the needs of the people who will be using and experiencing that technology.

It’s not a “one size fits all”.  The work we do with our digital maturity adoption models – you may have heard of the MRAM and ERAM adoption models. That’s the most well-known. But we have digital maturity models that span the entire care continuum. Suppose you consider any care delivery environment where a person may seek and access health care. In that case, our maturity models can assist and provide guidance and strategy for the digital transformation of those care delivery environments. The focus is on the person-centric or the patient-centric digital health ecosystem.

That is one of the presentations I’ll give at the global conference. It’s the use of digital maturity and digital transformation to build a person-centric digital health ecosystem. It needs to be a seamless process from the first encounter to the end of the encounter, from Pre-Natal right through to the End of Life.

Most importantly, it has to work seamlessly for everybody coming into contact with the system. So, that means using innovative technology. But the technology needs to work in the background. Then, the people using that technology can focus on their jobs. And we don’t have those situations where the nurses say, “Well, I don’t have time to read a digital health record.”

The response should be: “That is a tool that enables me to do my job so much better because I have access to the information that I need when and where I need it.” And the same is true for anybody, whether that’s the patient, the patient’s family, the physician, or any other healthcare provider.

Our maturity models are the focus of our work. All our maturity models have eight stages, and in the very beginning, at that stage of 0, 1, 2, which is pretty much where 95% of US and global healthcare systems sit in that early stage of digital maturity.

We often encounter process automation in some ways, but not digital transformation. Our tools and methodologies are designed to guide organizations from that piecemeal, fragmented use of technology and healthcare delivery to digital transformation, where you start at Pre-Natal and go through End of Life.

Leary: Regarding innovation, we’re very excited to have the ARAPH, the new Advanced Research Program Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which is a bipartisan development. They have about $2.5 billion that they want to spend on innovation, and they have a mandate to get the word out. Their deputy director is coming to the global conference to educate the healthcare community, from startups to large organizations, and to work with them.

Innovation can be stretched; what’s the next version of innovation in healthcare? They must find those innovative thoughts and voices and adequately fund them in a tight budgetary environment. Here in the US, they have $2.5 billion. And it’s a bipartisan belief that we need to continue to invest in that kind of approach.

It’s very similar to what happened with the 21st Century Cures Act. ARPA-H is new, and we’re very excited to have their senior officials there with us in the meeting with the startups and large organizations.

Global Meeting Hosting Government Leaders

Buck: I want to add that we have the South Korean Minister of Health is expected to attend, and representatives from Samsung Medical Center, which you’re going to be hearing a lot more about in terms of the innovation that they’re driving as a Stage 7 hospital system, but the message and the outcomes that they are going is a great touchpoint for all organizations around the world.

Bashe: To your point about the South Korean Minister of Health coming. It’s truly a global meeting, although it’s hosted in the United States.  

Hong Kong spends about 6 to 7% of its GDP on Health. They live about 15 years longer than we do in the United States. One of the things I find hopeful is that when I’m visiting and speaking to colleagues in other nations, most health information is digitized, consumers have their health records, and they are moveable.

Christine, to your point: when you and the senior staff are dealing with members of other governments worldwide, I imagine you’re serving an unofficial diplomatic role for the US health system with other people interested in sharing best practices. Could you give a glimmer about your global insights of not just dealing with the membership of HIMSS? I think you said there are 125,000 members now.

Buck: Toni, when you were speaking, the individuals in HIMSS come from a technology background; I have a FinTech background, and Toni is an actual patient care advocate. Everyone is invested in some way.  Hal Wolf, our CEO and President, is a person who works toward democratizing information between countries, dignitaries, and organizations, and that, to me, is a profound shift where we’re not keeping the information in for our benefit or someone else.

Our senior team comprises practitioners and developers of these new ideas, drawing ideas from the entire HIMSS staff and community. They’re leading panels like Toni or developing products.

Leary: The excellent collaboration between our organization and your experience has been so helpful to my growth—the beauty of what’s happening at global conferences. Perhaps we’ll get as high as 80 countries this year. They’re all searching for that digital health transformation approach, and sharing what they’ve learned and lessons they could learn from others is the key to the conference conversation and throughout the year.

The world looks at the 10-year investment that the United States made in digital health transformation, from 2010 through 2021, in the Medicaid/Medicare providers and all the providers that updated their systems. When the pandemic hit the United States, for all its politics around vaccination and immunization, aside from that, the United States was technologically ready to layer on telehealth services and various capabilities such as data and analytics because they’ve invested.

What we’re seeing in different parts of the world is curiosity about how the US did it, what kind of investment is needed, and what you would avoid if you were to do it again.

The Germans, for example, last year held a very impactful conversation with several members of the US Government on “If you had to do meaningful use over again, what would you do differently?” and struggling with the issue of not only provider burden but providers and patients “opt-in opt-out” of a program, whether it’s somewhere in Europe or Asia, or Central and South America.

They all want to get to that transformation—part of this conversation we’ll be having at our second Ministerial summit. Several years ago, we experienced the Minister of Tajikistan in one room, and the Columbian Minister of Health was in the next room, and they didn’t interact.

What we designed last year and again this year is a Ministerial Summit to talk about health equity, technology, and some of the capabilities we can all embrace as a community.

We’re expecting senior leaders from between 15 and 20 countries to sit around a table for two hours on Wednesday afternoon and continue the conversation into the evening at the international reception. They have those leaders together, talking about the vision for the future.

Bashe: The NGO element of HIMSS comes across. It’s a membership-based NGO. You are trying to advance collaboration and standards around how information can improve people’s lives and be somewhat universal. A nation’s borders do not trap information, and information shared can accelerate our understanding of how to deal with everything, from social determinants of health to the cost of health to the efficient use of health personnel, all that is driven by information. HIMSS is a depository of how processes impact performance in terms of health information. Would that be accurate?

Preparing for the Next Pandemic

Leary: That’s absolutely part of what we’ve seen over the last couple of years, which is that information sharing helps to advance not only individual countries but regional and global initiatives. The conversation that we had around the European health data spaces they developed for the EU was a big piece of legislation. There was concern that individual countries would be able to lock down their data.

If that is the case, what happened with the pandemic? What was the response to the pandemic, where data on COVID-19 from the early days of Asia would not have made their way to Europe, the United States, the Americas, and Africa? Researchers were able to work together because the data flowed from place to place, turning it into actionable information and vaccination and policies.

Suppose we don’t have those global dialogues around the power of the data and turning it into actionable information. In that case, you don’t have that kind of rapid response in a global pandemic.

Bashe:  As the HIMSS C-suite team, you’re part of a bigger puzzle. Your pieces have to align together, and I appreciate that. But regarding your mandate responsibility to the HIMSS community, could you share an expectation or hope you’d like to see come out of the upcoming meeting?

Buck:  My expectation and hope are that we create the energy for people to not just convene at one moment in time for a few days, but that it carries on 365 days a year and that we also create a stronger connection to the value that HIMSS bring to members, to organizational affiliates, to providers and patients. My goal is to get the human message out there and have all the passion and hard work come out from the team you see here and everyone who attends and creates that community.

Jim Burnett, Vice President, Engagement Strategies, HIMSS: HIMSS is an entire constellation involving research, analytics, government relations, professional development, and our chapter community. What we have is this community, which offers a wealth of engagement opportunities. In going through the study of all our different member communities, what I’m finding most clear is we need to draw people into that community from this important event. They need to come into the government relations group from the government; they need to go into the analytic tool sets to roadmap their digital transformation.

At the event, I hope our broader community is getting a lot more exposure and that we are helping people understand that it’s not this point in time. It’s not this individual session that you’re sitting in. It starts there and then crawls through that spider web through all these other supportive products and services that come out with the association.

Bashe: I notice that HIMSS members are deeply committed to the organization. It’s not like I’m sending in my annual check; they feel that by being a member of HIMSS, they are part of that conversation, part of the process of the evolution of the system, of how the information will be used.

Jim Burnett, how much of your role is spent in terms of looking at member retention and member acquisition, but also making sure that people understand the culture, the inherent values of HIMSS, and the responsibility that HIMSS feels in terms of how the information will be used to improve the health system?

Burnett: It’s about the overall value driven by the community and the collaboration. Most hospital systems aren’t in competition with one another. It’s the rising tide lifting all boats. To ensure that all these voices are heard, that their case studies are involved in our research, that their voices are indeed heard in the community, and that they can share their best practices.

That is the actual value of that community piece. It’s not necessarily the most prominent voices. You need to be able to pull from the corners of the room, draw people out, and get their perspectives on the conversation. I think that’s a critical point.

Professional Development to Initiatives on the Hill

Bashe: It’s not about digitally emailing your membership that their dues are up. Tom, how big is your policy team?

Leary: Our policy team is seven people. We deputize everyone on this screen, the rest of the organization, and the membership, so our policy team is 125,000 people. We’re seven staff. It’s a good thing.

Bashe: Is there a piece of legislation or conversation you and the team are hyper-focused on right now? What do you feel concerns the American health system here in the US?

Leary: We’re very focused on proper Office of National Coordinator funding.  They haven’t had a reasonable budget since their first year. They’re the little agency that can. 

There are two other pieces of legislation that we’re pounding on for this year. One is the telehealth provisions from the pandemic, which were extended through December of this year. And we’re working across the coalition to make that policy permanent. We’ve seen the benefit of telehealth. We’ve all benefited from it. The greater access and better healthcare outcomes. Those were set to go back to March 12, 2020, in terms of policy structure if we don’t make that policy permanent.

Laracuente: From an analytics product perspective, we are launching our newest digital maturity model, the infrastructure adoption model, and that launch is happening at our booth at 4 pm on Tuesday.

We’ve invested heavily in completely rewriting and modernizing this model. Throughout this session, we discussed using artificial intelligence, cyber security, and technology infrastructure. Overarching the in-frame model enables an organization to manage the risk of having technology. Financial risk, data, security, and privacy risk. And the risk that comes with user adoption and getting the greatest return on investment.

We’re launching that. But from an all-encompassing digital health ecosystem view. I love that you started this conversation by discussing the connections between patients with health problems. Jim mentioned that hospitals work together to try to lift each other in healthcare. When we look at health outcomes, all of the work we do in digital transformation is focused on improving the health of populations everywhere.

Part of what I’m touching on in my presentation on Tuesday is – are you familiar with the quintuple-

aim of health from public health improvement? Everything we do is focused on improving population health outcomes. Still, worldwide health care is focused on that overarching premise of the quintuple aim – improving access to care, improving patient experience, workforce experience, health, equity, reducing costs, and enhancing value for money.

We’re positioning our work in digital transformation and the maturity models in alignment with that. We’re very focused on how the digital security models deliver health outcomes and how those outcomes contribute to our provider organizations achieving success across those five domains of the quintuple.

You mentioned innovation earlier, and one thing that I wanted to touch on is when it comes to artificial intelligence, there’s a lot of discussion and hype around it, i.e., AI will take our jobs in healthcare. That couldn’t be further from the truth. AI will help us do our jobs much better, the jobs we’re all here to do, and why we get out of bed every day.

AI Will Unleash Waves of Practical Applications that Improve Patient Care

Bashe: There was a recent trending piece in Medika Life about pathologists and AI that reduces their attention when they feel they have more specificity and improve accuracy.

Laracuente: AI is perfectly positioned to do that when we look at the HIMSS mission around equity and health outcomes. I always start any conversation about AI and the workforce with the premise that AI will not replace healthcare providers or physicians. However, the physicians who use AI to do their jobs better and more efficiently will replace those who don’t.

Bashe:  The technology of the horseless carriage replaced blacksmiths through time. Technology has replaced professionals. I know that that’s very true. Humanity wins, hands down. It is unleashing as Innovation Theorist John Nosta proclaims, “the cognitive age.” Open-minded people who can hone their curiosity and ask the right questions will be valuable. Those who can’t put two words together will be in trouble.

Buck: That’s what I love about HIMSS – we’re substantive. We’re the real deal. We’re not fly by night. I love that about this whole conversation, but the entire organization and our community worldwide are the substantive providers of the suitable types of information people seek.

Bashe:  Everything is rooted in information. How we respect information, access it, and democratize it is essential. HIMSS is in incredible hands thanks to your collaborative leadership.  Thank you for sharing these thoughts and essential priorities for improved healthcare access and delivery to Medika Life readers.  I’m looking forward to continuing this conversation in Orlando.

Here is a special preview of the “Health Unabashed” interview with HIMSS CEO and President Hal Wolf on Healthcare NOW Radio from Monday, March 11th to Sunday evening, March 24th.

***

Special thanks to Albe Zakes, HIMSS Director, Corporate Communications for facilitating this conversation with HIMSS leadership.

The post Exclusive Medika Conversation with HIMSS Top Leadership – Inside Scoop on Key 2024 Priorities appeared first on Medika Life.

The Covid pandemic has been the first true global outbreak our modern society has endured. Our responses to contain it were neither swift, nor effective, perhaps reflecting a fundamental flaws in our preemptive planning and a lack of cohesion a united global health federation would have offered. Governments faltered, floundered and then did what anyone does when they see the ship sinking. They panicked.

What followed was a textbook example of how not to deal with a pandemic that cannot be contained. The public was cajoled, coerced, forced, frequently misled, and perhaps even lied to, often intentionally so. Current Covid policy suggests we have learned nothing in the past three years or have chosen to blithely ignore our missteps.

Many claim that it is easy to be critical of our pandemic strategy utilizing the perfect science of hindsight, that we were in uncharted waters and that “we didn’t know”.

These arguments are of course condescending, an easy out for the cold, harsh reality of how science and politics cohabited to produce the pandemic from hell. Many voices sounded caution in our response, many voices urged restraint, and more still, questioned the wisdom of advice issued by our bastions of health, the WHO, the CDC, the FDA and other global health infrastructures. These voices of dissent, without exception, were silenced in favor of an official global narrative.

You were either on board with this Covid policy or you were sidelined, silenced or discredited. An unprecedented global health dictatorship was born, impervious to logic, medical safety and long established ethical precedents for public health and patient safety. At the end of the day, pandemic policy, not science or common sense, dictated our miserable management of the pandemic.

Information, Facts and Fictions

Dealing with the the distribution of information on a global scale in an internet enabled world is an art form, a science on it’s own, that is in its infancy. Poorly understood and even more poorly applied, the act of sharing accurate, trustworthy and believable information on a global scale suffers from what some would suggest is an insurmountable obstacle. Humanity and its proclivity toward tribes.

Push information publicly to promote an agenda and you are assured of two things. Large swathes of the public will buy into your narrative. Large swathes of the public will not.

And so it was with Covid, and still is, with one exception. There is migration occurring in the tribes, an exodus from the Village of Blind Obedience to the Village of Skepticism, and it is growing daily. It is a migration that governments and healthcare willfully ignore and should this trend continue, it will, once and forever, sever any remaining trust the general public still holds for healthcare.

The migration is driven by one simple thing. Facts, the lack of, or their emergence. To underscore this point allow me to provide an example, one I recently wrote on, relating to advice provided globally on the risks posed by the Covid inoculations to nursing mothers. the following advice is offered by the CDC website. Emphasis added by author.

“CDC recommends COVID-19 vaccines for everyone ages 6 months and older, including people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant now, or might become pregnant in the future and getting boosters, if eligible.”

The fact that zero data existed (verified on the same page) to support the CDC opinion on the safety of nursing infants to the Covid inoculations didn’t stop the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) or the WHO from offering identical advice. This advice persists even now despite mounting evidence of harm to nursing infants. So to facts then, and willfully ignoring them in pursuit of a plan.

The Covid agenda ignored the most basic of human rights, the premise of self autonomy, that we are in charge of our own health and that we enjoy that very human luxury of choice. The public have been subjected to mandates, coerced, pressured, shamed and manipulated like sheep, herded with intent into a pen for the largest clinical trial in the history of humanity. A trial which remains ongoing, possibly fueled by the flawed logic of “in for a penny, in for a pound”.

I cannot speak to the specifics of the global agenda on Covid. I can freely speculate about profit, mismanagement, political gain, economics and even indulge in wild conspiracy theories, but it is a pursuit without point. What really matters now is where this gross mismanagement of information has led us and how, if at all, the situation can be remedied.

Even doctors use Dr. Google

For generations, doctors have been revered as people of science, these learned folk that would cure us of our myriad afflictions. Many patients would feel better simply from sitting in front of their doctor and describing their symptoms. A simple combination of trust and lack of public knowledge has served the industry admirably for centuries. Doctors shared that rarified air enjoyed by those we place on pedestals. For many, technology and the free flow of information have shattered this illusion. It was and is, in many ways, simply an illusion.

Doctors are fallible and the scope of knowledge required to discern a medical condition, given the breadth of our expanding understanding of human anatomy, is beyond the scope of an individual person, justifying the existence of specialized doctors. The odds of a correct diagnosis for your condition are staggeringly low and are dependent on the skill, empathy, level of education and interest (yes, interest) your doctor takes in your case. Sadly, your insurance status and financial standing also affect outcomes.

Even doctors resort to Google to access literature, not only to assist them forming a diagnosis, but for information on health policy and practice.

A sound approach, assuming the information you obtain from “trusted sources” reflects advice based on solid science and is ethically in the best interest of the practitioner/patient relationship. Needless to say, doctors require scientific and medical fact to safely treat their patients. In 2020 the internet was inundated by “medical information” relating to the SARS-COV2 virus and the associated disease we called Covid. Medical information and opinion (most of it of questionable origin) was the order of the day, rather than medical fact.

We were in the dark, facing an unknow enemy and much of what transpired in 2020 was trial and error, best guesses from a completely overwhelmed medical industry, horrendously equipped and fielding practitioners who were as terrified as their patients. Many medical staff resorted to the quickest pandemic updates they could find, turning to “trusted” outlets such as CNN and other mainstream media.

In the age of Internet Information Dissemination, we had just committed the cardinal sin, one that would single handedly destroy the credibility of treatments, of doctors, scientists and once revered healthcare institutions among large segments of our society.

We ignored fact in favor of assumption and then, to compound our error, we lied.

The art of Internet Information Dissemination (IID)

IID sounds like some IED (Improvised Explosive Device) but in many ways, it is far more deadly. It is a tool that if wielded incorrectly, irresponsibly and with impunity can result in disaster, and even death. We see the devastating impact of this so clearly in America’s fragmented political system, overwhelmed by those who abuse their digital privilege and responsibility.

To avoid having information appropriated and misinterpreted in our digital age, a simple, yet difficult to adhere to, mantra must be followed faithfully.

Tell the truth, share only verifiable fact and acknowledge when you simply “don’t know”.

Share information that doesn’t adhere to the above, that is disseminated for the purposes of furthering an agenda, that draws erroneous conclusions and manipulates fact, and you are faced with the current debacle healthcare grapples with. The erosion of trust, coupled with any loss of goodwill your predecessors may have built up.

As an analogy, it’s like Apple bringing out a new phone that does none of what it’s marketing suggests. The company would suffer irreparable damage to its reputation and destroy hard won trust with its customer base. This is the predicament healthcare now faces. Their phone isn’t holding up to the marketing they’ve published.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but it turns out their phone (the vaccine) isn’t actually even a phone (an inoculation). The Covid “vaccines” are not a multi-dose treatment regime for at risk patients. They form the backbone of the worlds largest and ongoing clinical trial, one that patients have in most instances been coopted into joining. You bought the phone based on a misleading pamphlet.

Unlike Apple however, Governments keep changing their sales ploy, seemingly blissfully unaware of the indelible footprint left by their previous pitches. The accepted and favored Covid narrative is unwinding in real time as facts emerge to conflict with “expert opinion” and questionable manipulation, interpretation and presentation of data to support the narrative.

Unfortunately for healthcare, this event is occurring in the public arena and everyone is able to participate in its demise. The naysayers are circling, waiting to claim their pound of flesh and the justification is self-evident. No one likes being told what to do, no one likes their freedom compromised and least of all, no one enjoys being forced to participate in clinical experimentation, no matter the scale.

How do we fix this?

Healthcare is one of the most lucrative industries we have created and therein lies the problem. It is infinitely complex in it’s subject matter, continuously evolves and it is subject to huge financial and political influences, most of which are self-serving and rarely align with the interests of public health or the patient. Healthcare also uses a multi-layered approach to risk management by spreading accountability where possible. The WHO will assign their policies to SAGE documents, while SAGE will reference the CDC or FDA, who in turn will reference the WHO for the identical policies.

Medical-speak protects the industry and practitioners by erring on the side of caution and avoiding offering specific advice. Medical literature is overwhelmed with non-committal safe terms such as “may lead to”, “unlikely to”, “more likely” and my all time favorite, “when in doubt consult your doctor” Unfortunately, in times of crises, such as global pandemics, these factors all conspire to produce an industry that is incapable of producing clear, concise and honest medical advice to the planet’s denizens. There is a thoughtful piece on the subject from Medika’s editor regarding the CDC and their communication calamities that I recommend reading.

In short, the medical and healthcare professions are their own worst enemies when it comes to engaging the general public. Add the internet to the mix, and the results are calamitous, particularly when the industry attempts to promote an agenda by publishing questionable information.

After three years and billions spent on marketing, many members of the public still do not understand that the so called Covid “vaccines” do not offer any protection against infection from the SARS-COV2 virus. To have portrayed the treatments as inoculations rather than treatments would have been truthful, rather than trying to profit falsely from the established reputation of vaccines, now all but ruined.

Truth bears up under scrutiny, fictions do not, well intentioned or otherwise. Lie in the digital world and you will be found out.

Truth is the only way forward for the industry to regain trust and rebuild its relationship with the general public. Sadly, for this to occur, healthcare would need to free itself from the shackles imposed by political, pharmaceutical and other corporate interests seeking to benefit or enrich themselves at the expense of public health. Currently healthcare communication considers manipulation and marketing as being mutually inclusive. Neither are conducive to re-establishing trust. Manipulation reeks of an agenda and is easily exposed, while marketing suggests you are trying to sell something.

Healthcare exists to serve the patient and its sole communicative duty is to inform, factually, truthfully and accurately. That is all.

The post Restoring Credibility. Can We Ever Trust Healthcare Again? appeared first on Medika Life.

No one wants to deny anyone with an emotional or physical handicap/disability the aid they need to meet the challenges in their lives. None of us want to be scammed, either, by people who are so self-indulgent that they are using the system. How difficult should it be to receive certification for emotional support animals, and should there be a limit to what types of animals may meet this certification? Do animals require certification of any kind?

Is the certification limited to dogs and cats, or can it be extended to peacocks, miniature horses, and other small farm animals? No, it’s not ludicrous because their owners have brought all of these animals to board passenger planes. However, these are the ones that make your eyes bug out as you murmur something indistinguishable and probably censorable under your breath.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has specific guidelines for what constitutes a service animal and whether or not emotional support animals meet the requirements. Let’s review them, shall we?

A service animal is: “…defined as a dog that has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability. The task(s) performed by the dog must be directly related to the person’s disability.” But it should be noted that this is not limited to dogs.

An emotional support animal does not perform any specific task and does not require training. Here the guidelines become open to interpretation and, possibly, lawsuit. The description of these animals by ADA indicates they are “…animals that provide comfort just by being with a person. Because they have not been trained to perform a specific job or task, they do not qualify as service animals under the ADA. However, some State or local governments have laws that allow people to take emotional support animals into public places. You may check with your State and local government agencies to find out about these laws.” The words “into public places” may be the loophole here.

One other comment may be helpful. Neither service nor emotional support animals require a vest, special harness, or tag on them. Anyone wishing to inquire is limited to asking:

1. Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?

2. What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?

3. Staff are not allowed to request any documentation for the dog, require that the dog demonstrate its task, or inquire about the nature of the person’s disability.

How do you determine the limits of “public places” for these animals? Does a plane fall under this rubric, or is it a “private place?” What about a food market, restaurant, or hospital? As such, can animals be denied?

Many small dogs and cats (I did see a monkey) are taken on planes with their owners. Oh, the monkey was trained to be a service animal and was being taken to its new owner in another state.

The portion of the law that denies anyone asking for either certification of an emotional support animal or the person’s handicap is where the scammers make hay. Rules under the ADA do not require certification, but some entities offer unneeded certification. Any therapist or physician can prepare a document regarding a person’s need for these animals. How many healthcare professionals would refuse the request?

People will avail themselves of emotional support animals when they don’t have any emotional or physical disability; some get disability placards without any disability. When asked, I knew a physician who said, “Of course, I give a note saying any of my patients needs a disability placard. Why not?”

The reason why not is simple. They are taking parking spaces needed for individuals with actual disabilities; it’s not a convenience but a necessity for them.

I know someone with several serious disabilities who, for years, refused to get a placard because she said others needed it more than she did. Of course, she was wrong, and she did eventually agree to the placard.

Those abusing the accommodations intended for persons with disabilities probably feel no shame in their actions; they should.

The post Self-indulgent Are Scamming the System with “Emotional Support” Animals appeared first on Medika Life.

Governor Greg Abbott removed all Covid-19 restrictions across the state on March 10, freeing Texas businesses to operate at 100% capacity. Dismayed public health experts and hospital leaders questioned the Governor’s executive order as cases of dangerous Covid variants increases statewide.

President Biden’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is expected to issue updated guidelines by March 15th. OSHA, part of the United States Department of Labor, was created in 1970 with the mission of ensuring safe and healthful working conditions for working people by “setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education, and assistance.”

Given the current lack of workplace mask consistency, expectations are high that OSHA will adopt a more stringent evidence-based policy to ensure a safe work environment for all employees.

Unlike nonbinding White House or CDC guidelines, OSHA has the congressional authority to enforce requirements in all 50 states and jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Wake Island, and Johnston Island.

Businesses must follow all OSHS requirements under penalty of law. Compliance failures result in fines, jail time, and temporary or permanent business shutdown.

Texas, which removed the mask mandate, may find OSHA knocking on the Austin statehouse doors when OSHA updates its Covid guidance on March 15. An OSHA mandate for Facemasks in the workplace would supersede Governor Abbott’s executive order creating a showdown between Austin and Washington DC.

Tensions will run high. A popular Houston Bar called the Concrete Cowboy scheduled a “mask off” party for March 10, the day Texas Governor Greg Abbott plans to remove all Covid-19 restrictions across the state. Public health leaders and social media push back against a maskless celebration of freedom resulting in the cancellation.

The City of Austin plans to continue to require face masks but is uncertain how to enforce the rules. Austin City bloggers have created master lists of stores and restaurants requiring masks to help guide citizens to safety.

Although a Federal ruling by OSHA will certainly be controversial, it may bring stability to local business as standardized, enforceable guidelines will be consistent across the state.

Most leaders expect OSHA to adopt a six-month emergency temporary coronavirus standard requiring employees to wear masks in the workplace. Masks are the simplest way to protect yourself and others from Covid-19 infection.

It is also expected that OSHA will add evidence-based recommendations on the type of facemasks, exceeding 80% protection standard as outlined by ASTM and ensure a proper fit for all employees.

The last OSHA update was on Jan 29. Face masks were discussed as a key mitigation strategy but were not mandated. The January update required employers to “implement Covid-19 prevention programs in the workplace.” Certain risk reduction strategies were recommended but not mandated. These key measures to limit the spread of Covid-19 included sending sick employees home, implementing physical distancing, installing barriers where physical distancing was not possible, encouraging face coverings. The January update also guided the use of PPE (personal protective equipment) and improving ventilation.

On January 21, President Joe Biden signed an executive order asking OSHA to consider if any new emergency temporary standards are needed to protect workers from Covid-19.

OSHA is required to respond to President Biden’s executive order on March 15, 2021.

Let’s see what happens on Monday. An OSHS vs. Austin showdown may be inevitable.

Image Travis County Health Department

Vaccination is the key to getting our lives back to normal. The current FDA-approved vaccines from Moderna, Phizer, and Johnson and Johnson are highly effective even against the surging B.1.1.7 variant. The Moderna and Phizer vaccines offer 95% protection against Covid-19. Johnson and Johnson’s Janssen vaccine offers 72% protection against infection and 86% against severe disease.

All three are highly effective in preventing death.

Register Now!

To get your vaccine, you must register. Follow the links below to get started:

For Travis County, click here.

The post Texas Leaders Removed the Masks, but Federal Agency Ruling May Put Them Back On appeared first on Medika Life.