News You Can Use – January 2024

Healthcare Realities: Beyond the Headlines

This month’s episode of “News You Can Use” on Healthcare NOW Radio features news from the month of  January 2024.

The show that gives you a quick insight into the latest news, twists, turns and debacles going on in healthcare with my friend and co-host Craig Joseph, MD (@CraigJoseph) Chief Medical Officer at Nordic Consulting Partners and myself, where every diagnosis comes with a side of humor. We hope you stay curious, stay engaged, and keep seeking the truth in healthcare in a world that thrives on information.

Buckle up as we dive into the ER of excitement, the ICU of irrationality, and the waiting room of wacky wisdom in this month’s show that features a review of:

• The expanding role of physician extenders
• The Promise and Challenges of GLP Agonists
• COVID long tail
• Whole Body Scan Services

We start our discussion with a review of the expanding role of physician assistants and other “physician extenders” in healthcare settings, especially in the UK’s NHS (Physician associates accused of illegally prescribing drugs and missing diagnoses), where they now appear to have too much independence.

The latest data on GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic shows that over half of patients maintained their weight loss after stopping the medication which is good news(Many Patients Maintain Weight Loss a Year After Stopping Semaglutide and Liraglutide). However, there are concerning side effects like severe nausea and vomiting that need to be monitored (10,000 patients have filed ‘gastro’ claims against Ozempic, Mounjaro drug makers). COVID also remains a threat, still actively infecting people, and causing potential long-term impacts like cognitive deficits that we are still working to understand (Persistent complement dysregulation with signs of thromboinflammation in active Long Covid).

Unmasking the Reality of Whole Body Scans

Listen in for our warning on against hype around costly “whole body scans” that claim to detect hundreds of conditions (Patients are lining up for $2,500 full-body MRI scans that can detect cancer early). These incidental findings usually cause more harm than good through unnecessary follow-up tests and procedures. Overall, screening should be clinically driven and personalized.

We hope you enjoy our take on the latest news and developments in healthcare and want to help you keep untangling the web of information, dodging the sensational pitfalls, and emerging victorious, albeit a little dizzy, on the other side. In the end, the stories we uncover, and the discussions we ignite, all shape the narrative of our shared future. We want to hear from you especially if you have topics covered or questions you’d like answered. You can reach out directly via the contact form on my website, or send a message on LinkedIn to Craig or me.

Until next week keep solving healthcare’s mysteries before they become your emergencies.

This article was originally published on the Dr. Nick – The Incrementalist blog and is republished here with permission.

For years Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick, has served as a voice on the impact of new technologies on healthcare, earning a reputation as a leading authority on where the future of medicine is going. Combining powers of observation and real world experience, Dr. Nick has seen many predictions come true and makes the case that innovations in healthcare can be accomplished incrementally, not just by moonshot events. Tune in to hear Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist and his guests discuss what the future of healthcare looks like, how we will get there, and what it will take to improve healthcare for all.

Tune in weekdays at 4:00am, 12 noon, and 8:00pm ET.

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