Aging population will double health spending in the next decade

In the next decade, the number of people 65 and older will increase by one third.  According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)'s Budget and Economic Outlook for 2012-2022, "the aging of the population and rising costs for health care will continue to exert significant pressure on the federal budget."  This pressure will lead to an increase in outlays for Medicare, Medicaid and other mandatory health care programs from $856 billion in 2011 to $1.8 trillion in 2022.  This projected increase assumes a 27% physician paycut, taking effect in March, although the outlook also outlines an "alternative fiscal scenario" in which physician pay rates are frozen at 2011 levels, resulting in an additional $316 billion in mandatory health care spending.

The CBO states that "the set of budget policies that were in effect in the past cannot be maintained in the future," and suggests that "to keep deficits and debt from causing substantial harm to the economy, policymakers will need to ... make major changes to Social Security and federal health care programs."

For more information and analysis, see the CBO's summary and the Wall Street Journal's summary.

Update, 2/6/2012: According to the AMA, the House GOP Doctors Caucus may be reconsidering reallocating funds originally earmarked for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq in order to avoid physician paycuts.  The AMA supports this strategy, and calls for congressional support for it in a Jan. 23rd press release.

New Resources for 2012!

Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers: developments in technology, the application of testing to decision making, and the ethical, legal, social and economic aspects of testing for researchers, clinicians, medical geneticists and genetic counselors.  Peer-reviewed, monthly, impact factor: 1.645.

From Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery:
JBJS Case Connector: case reports, connections and trends in orthopaedic surgery.
JBJS Essential Surgery Techniques: evolving practices in orthopaedic surgery.

Joint Commission: The Source: combines Benchmark and Perspectives on Patient Safety to make Joint Commission accreditation requirments, performance measurement and patient safety information available in one publication.

Journal of Visualized Experiments: biological, medical, chemical and physical research published in video format.  Treadwell now subscribes to JoVE General and the sections listed below.   Peer-reviewed, articles published online as accepted.
Journal of Visualized Experiments - Bioengineering
Journal of Visualized Experiments - Clinical and Translational Medicine
Journal of Visualized Experiments - Immunology and Infection
Journal of Visualized Experiments - Neuroscience

Pancreatology (available Jan. 2012): original articles, case reports, guidelines and reviews of basic, translational and clinical pancreatic research in gastroenterology, oncology, surgery, pharmacology, cellular and molecular biology, endocrinology, immunology and epidemiology.  Six issues per year, impact factor: 2.128.

Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice: data-based study, policy analysis and discussion of relevant policy issues exploring the relationships between nursing and health policy.  Peer-reviewed, quarterly.

PsycTESTS (searchable via Ovid Jan. 2012): database providing access to psychological tests, measures, scales, surveys and other assessments, as well as information on test development and administration.

Science Express: electronic publication of selected Science papers ahead of print.

Because of cost increase and low usage, we have also dropped the following titles, but may maintain access to backfiles as well as links to their availability elsewhere:
Allergy
American Journal of Medical Genetics
ANZ Journal of Surgery
BioEssays
Clinical and Experimental Immunology
Current Opinion in Biotechnology
FEBS Journal
FEBS Letters
Gene Expression Patterns
Genomics
Human Gene Therapy
Journal of Surgical Oncology
Laboratory Investigation
Leukemia
Mechanisms of Development
Nursing Inquiry
Oncogene
Prostate
Proteonomics

New ebooks in Medicine, Neurology, Orthopedics, Psychiatry, Reference and Urology

Medicine
The Ethics of Consent: Theory and Practice
Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction

Neurology
The Central Nervous System: Structure and Function
Neurology: A Clinician's Approach

Orthopedics
Head and Neck Pathology

Psychiatry
Self-Management of Depression: A Manual for Mental Health and Primary Care Professionals

Reference
HTML, XML &CSS for Dummies

Urology
Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy

As always, if you have questions about these or any other Treadwell resources, please ask us!

Medical Infographics

An infographic is a visual representation of information, usually data or facts that are easier to absorb in a format more appealing than a list or spreadsheet.  Infographics have become a popular way to disseminate information about everything from pop culture timelines to government data.  GE has a data visualization project with a branch focusing on consumer health - Healthymagination - which has actually taken 2009 Joint Commission data on evidence-based practice in hospitals and turned it into an interactive infographic:

Users can navigate to their state to see how their local hospitals perform and scroll over each square to learn more about how they're measured.  MGH performs at or above average in every criteria:

Healthymagination also provides infographics on relationships between medical conditions, how Clinical Decision Support System has been implemented, and even an iPad app that explores health statistics across the U.S.  


Here are some other medical infographics out there that may be helpful, or at least interesting (the last one inspired me to put together a standing desk!):

Journal Donations

Fall is near, and whether or not you're in academia, this time of year often represents a renewal, a kind of fresh start.  It's around this time of year that people consider cleaning out their offices, maybe even moving from a collection of older print journals to a reliance on electronic archives - we certainly understand that!  

While we do appreciate an interest in donating materials to Treadwell, we generally accept very few donations, and almost never donations of print journals.  We do have a list of organizations that do sometimes accept donations of this kind, although Unclutterer recently provided some good advice that may be more useful: 

Right after college, I went to work for a small publication called the Kansas Government Journal ... I would often field calls from teachers, librarians, and individuals looking for back issues. I never, however, received offers from people wanting to give us these back issues. It would have been nice had someone offered to give us their back copies since we had a limited supply.

Since older medical materials might have been superceded by new information, routing them back to the publishers may be the best way to make sure that the material is used in a way that puts it in context.  The comments section of this article provides many other helpful suggestions as well:

• The National Library of Medicine's journal donation program
• Operation Medical Libraries
• Contact the Medical Library Association for donation information

Again, since medicine is a field that constantly changes, it's best to find a program or organization that will be able to put the information in your resources in context.  I'm sure they will thank you for putting your resources to good use!

New ebooks in Cardiology, Medicine, Nursing, Orthopedics and Reference

Cardiology
Echocardiography in Pediatric and Adult Congenital Heart Disease

Medicine
Critical Care Handbook of the Massachusetts General Hospital 
Global Health Disparities: Closing the Gap through Good Governance
Handbook of Signs & Symptoms
Medical Malpractice Survival Handbook

Nursing
Davis's Drug Guide for Nurses
Midwifery & Women's Health Nurse Practitioner Certification Review Guide

And as always, if you have questions about these or any other Treadwell resources, please get in touch!

Orthopedics
Spine Imaging: Case Review

Pediatrics
Spanish for Pediatric Medicine: a Practical Communication Guide

Reference
Successful Online Learning: Managing the Online Learning Environment Efficiently and Effectively

New ebooks in Cardiology, Geriatrics, Medicine, Radiology, Science and Statistics

Cardiology

Clinical Guide to Primary Angioplasty

Geriatrics

Handbook of the Psychology of Aging

Medicine

Interactive Case Studies in Health Communication

Radiology

Patient's Guide to Medical Imaging

Science

Handbook of Biomarkers

Statistics

Encyclopaedic Companion to Medical Statistics

And as always, if you want to see a list of all Treadwell's ebooks, head to our ebooks page; they're sorted alphabetically by default, but you can also see them sorted by subject.  And if you have any questions about these or other resources, please ask!