Engaged patients and families, alert: the NY Times reports (here) on a form of unwarranted practice variation that has been exposing elders to excess radiation. Many smaller hospitals have been needlessly exposing their Medicare patients to double CT scans on the same day – one with a contrast dye, one without. Some do it on 80% of patients, asserting that “more information is better.”

You can reduce risk and perhaps stress on your elders, and lower Medicare costs: tell such hospitals modern academic medical centers do double scans rarely or not at all.

(For more on practice variation, see our previous posts on it.)

e-Patient Dave

"e-Patient Dave" deBronkart is a co-founder of our Society and past board chair. He survived a near-fatal kidney cancer by being an e-patient long before he'd heard the word. Today he evangelizes participatory medicine, patient empowerment, and patient data access as a keynote speaker and at epatientdave.com.