by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 22, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, Quality Payment Program, US Wound Registry
Selecting Measures Beginning in 2015, measure selection took on a whole new meaning. No longer was it “ok” to simply pick a few measures that your EHR could easily capture the data and send the results off to CMS. Where once you were paid for reporting, P4R, now with...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 2, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
This 51 year old man has horribly painful ulcerations on the plantar surface of both feet. He was cured of Hepatitis C with Sofosbuvir a year ago. The ulcer did not improve with prednisone, cyclosporine, or topical Aczone gel. After multiple biopsies the lesion was...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 25, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Here’s one more strange disorder that causes staining of the tissues. Ochronosis is a syndrome caused by the accumulation of homogentisic acid in connective tissues. The phenomenon was first described by Rudolf Virchow in 1865. The condition was named after the...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 19, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Nutrition & Wound Healing, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
http://www.vacadsci.org/vjsArchives/v8/8-1/Physicians.pdf In preparation for Thanksgiving, I thought I’d read a little more about medicine in the early colonies and chanced upon this article about physicians at early Jamestown. It makes for sad reading. There’s a lot...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 16, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
Last week I took a walk down memory lane to tell you about the way the field of hyperbaric medicine nearly ended in 1999. We got a reprieve during which we could have changed the course we were on, but we didn’t. Currently, Medicare has initiated a pilot program...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 12, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
If you are getting ready for Thanksgiving you might consider putting lobster on the menu. When colonists arrived in the New World, lobsters were almost certainly part of their diet. English settlers reported catching lobsters in nets as early as 1605 and Captain John...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 11, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Prolonged venous hypertension results in venous dilatation and passage of red blood cells through the endothelium into the interstitium with subsequent breakdown and conversion of hemoglobin to hemosiderin. Iron oxide remains as a brown pigment stain on the skin...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 5, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
Here’s a L’Nard splint to protect heels from pressure ulcers. They’ve been around for decades, but they are still the best way to protect the heel from pressure. Caroline Fife, MD I’ve got a NEW Facebook Page – be sure to follow me there too! Twitter/CarolineFifeMD ...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 4, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
TRADJENTA® (Linagliptin)-Induced Bullous Pemphigoid Bullous pemphigoid is an acute or chronic autoimmune skin disease involving the formation of bullae at the dermal-epidermal junction. It is classified as a type II hypersensitivity reaction, with the formation of...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 3, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Please remember to check out my November/December 2015 editorial in Today’s Wound Clinic. I reviewed the sad history of the two years I spent as President of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society from 1998 to 2000, during which CMS attempted to reduce facility...
