This week Not Nurse Ratched has an amusing, meandering, and thoughtful post about the uses of Facebook by patients in the hospital. There’s a short excerpt below, but read the whole thing here.

They update Facebook constantly. CONSTANTLY. They have us take photos of injuries they can’t reach so they can post the photos to Facebook. I am not making this up. “I want a photo of my hideously dislocated ankle/knee/shoulder but I can’t move, so would you mind using my phone to take a picture for me?” And they keep updating and updating. I have actually said, “I’m about to give you a medicine that is going to render you unconscious immediately, so you should set your phone down.”

How could we have a weekly Web roundup that doesn’t at least mention health insurance reform? The spotlight has been slowly turning toward the insurers themselves, a crucial part of the equation (along with cost control and many other factors). This week Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius met with the top executives of insurance companies to demand an explanation for the steep increases in rates seen in the last year.

salmonella/via CDC

If you’re looking for yet another reason why processed food isn’t good for you (besides the frequent presence of high fructose corn syrup and massive doses of salt, and the inaccurate packaging claims that the foods are “healthy” and “lean”), this week the NY Times reported news of a widespread food recall, stating that “

[t]housands of processed food products – from chilis to hot dogs to dips – contain an ingredient that federal food regulators say was contaminated with salmonella . . . ”

Also this week: hopes were crushed for a pill thought promising for the treatment of Alzheimer’s. Garry Schwitzer of HealthNewsReview.org isn’t surprised, though–no one’s better at pointing out the way drugs are hyped by mainstream coverage, whether they work and are safe or not. Here’s the short take at his blog.

Lastly, for some widely varying provider-level perspectives on palliative care and end-of-life issues, there’s an excellent roundup of posts and links to blogs and Websites at the Palliative Care Grand Rounds hosted by Larry Beresford.

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