Archive for the ‘Home Remedies’ Category
The prostate is a small gland that only men have in their reproductive systems. It is close in shape and size to a walnut. The 
prostate gland is located low in the pelvis, under the bladder, and in front of the rectum. The function of the prostate is to help make a third the semen the body produces. It also helps to keep urine out of semen and enhances pleasurable sensations of arousal. As many men get older problems can arise in the prostate gland. The prostate gland surrounds the urethra which passes urine; this is the source of most problems that develop. The prostate also tends to grow bigger with age and can squeeze the urethra or a tumor can develop that would also make the prostate larger.
Enlarged prostate, prostate cancer and an infection known as prostatitis are the three most common problems that aging men have. There are three tests that can be done to determine if your prostate is healthy or not. A digital rectal exam is a test to feel the prostate for problems. The prostate specific antigen test is a blood test and a biopsy can be done to test for cancer. Prostatitis is an infection or inflammation of the prostate gland. It can affect at least half of all men at some point in their lives. Having this infection does not increase your chances of prostate disease and it is not contagious or spread through sexual contact. Its symptoms include trouble passing urine, chills, fever, and pain in the groin, painful ejaculation, lowered sex drive, and rectal pressure or throbbing. Most cases of prostatitis can be treated with antibiotics for several weeks.
Enlarged prostate is also known as BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia). Hyperplasia means too much growth and benign means not cancerous. Symptoms for Enlarged prostate and prostate cancer can be similar but you can not get prostate cancer from having an enlarged prostate. Symptoms for BPH include trouble beginning to urinate, passing urine often, weak or slow urine stream, and feelings of bladder not fully emptied. It takes many years for enlarged prostate to become a bothersome problem. By the age of 70 all men have some kind of prostate enlargement. It can get almost to the size of a lemon. There are surgeries and drug therapies to treat enlarged prostate.
Prostate cancer happens when cancer cells form in the tissue of the prostate. These cancer cells tend to grow more slowly than most other cancer cells. Cell changes may happen within 10, 20, or 30 years before a tumor gets big enough to cause symptoms. But cancer cells can spread through out the body; so by this time has passed it may have spread to other parts of the body, most commonly the pelvic lymph nodes and bones. Symptoms include weak urine stream, trouble passing urine, pain in hips, back, and pelvis, and painful ejaculation.
Family Health information is available from many different places such as the Internet, medical professionals, so called “old wives’ tales”, traditional remedies and cures as well as from books and from friends. If the remedy is provided by a qualified medical person, then it is likely to be true, and work. However, if the information was provided by a different source, there is no real way to check that the suggestion provided will work. Nowadays, websites can be created in a matter of minutes and can be updated instantly, and as they are not regulated, there is no saying that what is written on a site is true. Many people will look to websites to find out about their medical complaints, but this can do more harm than good. Some websites offering medical information are very vague and don’t really say a great deal, whilst others go into a lot of medical detail that is confusing to those not medically trained. Trusted internet sites, such as those provided by hospitals, or health agencies, and government departments, are most likely to be accurate, and will be kept up to date.
Books providing medical information are likely to be genuine, as it would be hard to get a book published that is factually wrong. Books covering specific ailments or common medical complaints are usually a good place to start, so that you have an idea as to what might be wrong. Some of the famous “Old wives’ tales” types of remedies do work. Friends and family may have their own family or unusual cures or suggestions that work and you may be willing to try them.
Family health websites and magazines are useful sources of information, in that the same question may be asked and answered often, and so the answers are likely to be the same. If you use these sorts of sites, or read these kinds of magazine, then you will be able to assess the quality and accuracy of the information given. You may be the sort of person that goes straight to the Doctors at the first sign of a cold, or somebody who only uses herbal remedies or aromatherapy. You may be the sort of person who never goes to the Doctors, and never takes medication for any ailments, aches or pains.
As someone who has been teaching health informatics students for a number of years, it is rewarding to find this discipline finally receiving the attention and interest it demands. Most health experts have agreed for some time that the two academic disciplines of informatics and genomics are the key disciplines that will shape the future of American healthcare by enabling doctors to have access to personalized healthcare information at the point of care.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes specific wording supporting increased funding of health informatics programs around the nation. A recent article in the New York Times has noted that there is a greatly increased demand for “health informatics specialists” who have expertise in medical records, insurance claims, clinical care and computer programming as health care providers look to utilize the $19 billion in stimulus funding directed at implementing and expanding electronic health records.
Health informatics specialists usually start their career or education in computer programming or as health care professionals, and later earn a degree in health informatics and take midlevel or senior jobs at a hospital, doctor’s office, insurance company, drug firm or other organization working with health care data. The experience of the UC Davis Health Informatics program, which I direct, is that most of our graduates have found senior positions in health informatics in both public and private sectors, including a number who have become faculty in health informatics programs, and are now teaching future generations of students.
William Hersh MD, Chair of the Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology at Oregon Health and Science University was quoted in the New York Times as saying , “The health IT people run the servers and install software, but the informatics people are the leaders, who interpret and analyze information and work with the clinical staff.” It is crucial to have highly trained experts in informatics who are able to work across both the disciplines of health and information technology, and who understand and are expert in both. Without these informatics experts it is hard to see how the Obama Administration policies for Health Information Technology can possibly be implemented.
Helping employees get answers to their personal health benefits questions is a common responsibility for benefit administrators (BAs).
Many employees turn to their company’s benefit administrator for assistance because they feel the BA is in a better position to get accurate and timely information from the health insurance carrier. However, there are rules and restrictions that govern how BAs can obtain specific health information for employees. In the past, BAs could simply ask the health insurance carrier a question related to the personal health of an employee and the carrier could provide the answer directly to the BA. However, this has changed. In today’s workplace, there arerules and restrictions for obtaining health information on a specific employee. The federal and state governments have issued strict guidelines with severe penalties concerning the misuse or unauthorized disclosure of an individual’s protected health information (PHI). Therefore, it is important that companies and their designated benefits representative understand these rules and regulations and how they pertain to sharing an employee’s PHI.
Getting permission
Benefit administrators can still help employees obtain answers to their personal health questions but they must now follow the guidelines set forth by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The HIPAA regulations, effective April 14, 2003, impose specific policies and procedures governing the use and disclosure of an individual’s protected health information. In order to make an inquiry on an employee’s behalf, the BA must obtain written consent from the employee. The authorization form is usually specific to the health benefits company to which the inquiry is being made and must contain certain elements required under HIPAA, including the limitations of the authorization, effective and termination dates, and information regarding the individual’s rights under the authorization. Some health benefits companies will only accept an original consent form; others will accept a faxed copy.
Receiving a response
Once the appropriate form is received by the health benefits company, a response to the BA’s inquiry can be released. The information that will be reported back to the BA will bethe “minimum necessary” — the least amount of information necessary to answer the question, limited to the range of permission. For example, if the initial inquiry was regarding whether a claim had been processed for payment, the health benefits carrier would provide a response of “no” or a response of “yes” that would include the date of payment. Based on the scope and wording of the question, what the claim was for and the amount paid may not be disclosed.