December 10th, 2015
Podcast 192: Are we too sweet on HbA1c testing?
Over half the patients with Type 2 diabetes have their HbA1c measured too frequently — i.e., at least three times a year. Why is that a bad thing? Dr. Rozalina McCoy, the lead author of a paper in The BMJ explains. Using claims data, her group followed over 30,000 patients with stable HbA1c levels and found […]
January 20th, 2012
Podcast 142: Really, why are you ordering that test?
The American College of Physicians wants to encourage high-value, cost-conscious care. And so they convened a consensus panel of physicians to list tests that they considered overused or inappropriately used in certain circumstances. One example would be the use of MRI for breast screening in normal-risk patients; another is the use of imaging studies in […]
August 12th, 2011
Podcast 128: Bleeding patients, inadvertently, into anemia happens more often than you might think
An article in Archives of Internal Medicine examines what’s called “diagnostic blood loss” — the loss of blood through phlebotomy and not hemorrhage. The effect is the same, however. According to a study conducted in 57 medical centers among some 18,000 patients with myocardial infarction, one in five became moderately or severely anemic (hemoglobin level under […]
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