As the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, battery-powered "e-cigarettes" - no matches needed - give consumers a nicotine fix without the burning tobacco haze, hazards, and stench of their old-fashioned counterparts. “The real question is not whether e-cigarettes are better than cigarettes. The question is whether e-cigarettes are better than treatment - real treatment," said Frank Leone, MD, director of the Comprehensive Smoking Treatment Program at Penn. Critics, including the FDA and the American Cancer Society, see e-cigs as having some toxic properties and risky until proved benign.
The Philadelphia Inquirer explores the latest advances in smoking cessation programs. "In every smoker, there's a non-smoker trying to come out," said Frank Leone, MD, director of Penn's Comprehensive Smoking Treatment Program. "We want to make that as easy and effective as possible. The field has shifted toward being more supportive. 'You deserve not to smoke and here's how we're going to do it.'" Research published last week by Caryn Lerman, PhD, interim director of the Abramson Cancer Center and the Mary W. Calkins Professor of Psychiatry, is also mentioned in the story. "For the first time, we've identified a mechanism that explains why people with a particular genetic background may be more prone to relapse when they try to quit smoking," she said.
Buying Prescription Eyeglasses Online?
Americans spend more than $15 billion each year on eyewear. CBS 3 reports that now some websites are selling prescription eyeglasses for a fraction of the price. But eye healthcare professionals want patients to know that there can be issues with buying prescription eyeglasses online. “We want measurement to be proper and exact, we want precision and we want quality of lenses,” said Janet DeBerry Steinberg, OD, director, Penn Center for Low Vision Research and Rehabilitation.
Team Approach Cuts Infection Risk After Orthopedic Surgery
Medscape reports that a multidisciplinary approach reduced the rate of deep surgical-site infections (D-SSI) in orthopedic surgeries, according to a study presented at the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 20th Annual Scientific Meeting. Discussing a PPMC initiative, the report notes that in the 12 months after implementation, researchers noted a 66% reduction in hip arthroplasty D-SSI and an 80% reduction in knee D-SSI. The improvements continued for an additional 6 months after that. "We think part of the benefit was that we bundled several [initiatives] together and rolled them out over a short period of time, and they became a standard of practice," said Judith O'Donnell, MD, chief of infectious diseases and hospital epidemiologist at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.
Making the Case for a Hybrid Interventional OR
Moving a catheter laboratory inside an operating theater is no easy matter. But many hospitals are making the case for these high-tech ORs. "We can't move forward with improved patient care without the hybrid suite," said Wilson Y. Szeto, MD, surgical director for Transcatheter Cardio-Aortic Therapies at Penn Presbyterian in an interview with Cardiovascular Business Magazine. When Presbyterian started evaluating a potential hybrid lab in 2006, the planning team homed in on procedures. "To convince the administration of the importance of the hybrid lab, we had to demonstrate that it would be fully utilized, which meant designing the room to accommodate coronary procedures and vascular work, and more importantly, conventional open heart operations," recalled William H. Matthai, MD, clinical associate professor of Medicine.
