During the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the only ways to see a doctor was via video or phone appointment, and it turns out many people with cancer still prefer telemedicine visits over in-person ones. The recent end of the U.S. public health emergency will remove some of the flexibilities that were put in place during the pandemic to allow for wider use of telemedicine, and this may be unfortunate, noted study author Dr. Krupal Patel, an oncologist at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla. “When implemented right and offered to the right patient, telemedicine visits can be a valuable alternative to in-person appointments,” Patel said. The benefits of telemedicine for people with cancer are substantial, he noted. It allows for greater flexibility with scheduling, reduces costs associated with getting to the doctor’s office or hospital, and saves travel time. For the study, more than 33,300 people with cancer answered survey questions on in-person visits, and almost 6,000 on their telemedicine experiences during and after the height of the pandemic, from April 2020 through June 2021. Almost 76% of cancer patients were highly satisfied with their access to their doctors via televisits, compared with about 63% of those who saw their doctors in person. About 91% of people who saw their doctor virtually were highly satisfied with the response and amount…  read on >  read on >

While the U.S. Veterans Affairs health system has been criticized for long appointment wait times and limited access to specialists, the quality of care and access to a range of surgical services is as good as or better than at non-VA health centers on several measures, new research reveals. “Surgery involves many steps of care,” said lead study author Dr. Mariah Blegen, a fellow in the department of surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine. “This updated review is important because it tells us that the veterans at the VA are getting good care. Quality improvement, through the VA National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (VA NSQIP), has been the focus of the VA for several decades and I think this effort is paying off,” Blegen said in a news release from the American College of Surgeons. The findings were published online May 8 in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. VA NSQIP has helped track millions of surgical cases and improve outcomes, including improved rates of postoperative death and infection, according to the researchers. “The database continues to drive statistically reliable research that can help VA hospitals better assess its surgical outcomes and develop quality improvement programs,” said Dr. Clifford Ko, director of the ACS Division of Research and Optimal Patient Care. After the success of VA…  read on >  read on >

(HealthDay News) – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Wednesday issued a six-month extension for people seeking to fill controlled medication prescriptions via telehealth. That ability had been set to expire along with the ending of the pandemic public health emergency on May 11. “These medications, including those used to treat opioid use disorder, are a vital form of care for millions of Americans who have come to rely on safe and effective telemedicine appointments,” Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, chair of the American Medical Association’s Substance Use and Pain Care Task Force, said in a statement. “Patients being treated with these medications often have challenges securing and traveling to in-person appointments. We are grateful the DEA is approaching this issue with the gravity it deserves, and we look forward to reviewing the details of the policy when they become available,” Mukkamala added. Prior to the pandemic, patients had to see a doctor for at least one in-person appointment before being able to access prescriptions for a long list of medications, including stimulants for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, benzodiazepines for anxiety, and medications for opioid use disorder, sleep or pain. The DEA had offered proposals on March 1 that would allow prescribers to prescribe one 30-day supply of these controlled medications or the opioid use disorder buprenorphine without an in-person exam. Then an exam would be required…  read on >  read on >

Artificial intelligence (AI) research and development should stop until its use and technology are properly regulated, an international group of doctors and public health experts said. Certain types of AI pose an “existential threat to humanity,” the experts wrote in the May 9 issue of the journal BMJ Global Health. The group — led by Dr. Frederik Federspiel of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom — included experts from the United States, Australia, Costa Rica and Malaysia. AI has transformative potential for society, including in medicine and public health, but also can be misused and may have several negative impacts, they said. The experts warned that AI’s ability to rapidly clean, organize and analyze massive data sets, which may include personal data and images, make it possible to be used to manipulate behavior and subvert democracy. There are already examples, they noted. AI was used in this way in the 2016 U.S. presidential election; in the 2017 French presidential election; and in elections in Kenya in 2013 and 2017, the experts reported. “When combined with the rapidly improving ability to distort or misrepresent reality with deep fakes, AI-driven information systems may further undermine democracy by causing a general breakdown in trust or by driving social division and conflict, with ensuing public health impacts,” the authors warned. AI-driven surveillance can…  read on >  read on >

In a world increasingly consumed by social media, much has been made of the amount of time younger generations spend online every day — and the harms that habit can bring. But now a new study of older adults suggests that regular internet use may actually be a boon for older Americans, staving off the long-term risk for dementia. “We studied the association between internet usage and the risk of dementia in the long term among dementia-free adults aged 50 and older,” explained study author Gawon Cho. “We found that regular users experienced approximately half the risk of dementia than non-regular users,” said Cho, a doctoral student in the department of social and behavioral sciences at New York University’s School of Global Public Health, in New York City. “Surprised by the magnitude of the risk difference” her team observed, Cho acknowledged that it’s not entirely clear whether dementia-free patients are simply more likely to surf the web in the first place, or whether surfing the web can actually help keep dementia risk at bay. “We cannot tell which is the chicken and which is the egg at this time,” Cho admitted. Still, she said, the findings do indicate that when it comes to maintaining a healthy brain “internet usage in old age matters.” To examine how internet use might impact dementia risk, the study team…  read on >  read on >

Only five months have passed since the world got its first taste of the ground-breaking artificial intelligence (AI) tool known as ChatGPT. Promising a brave new world of human-machine connectivity, AI demonstrates near-instantaneous access to in-depth information on almost any subject, all in full conversational sentences, often delivered in a human-sounding voice. A new study says health care may never be the same. That’s the broad takeaway of groundbreaking research that tackled a potentially existential question: When it comes to providing patients with high-quality medical information — and delivering it with compassion and understanding — who does it better: ChatGPT or your doctor? The answer: ChatGPT, by a mile. In fact, after comparing doctor and AI responses to nearly 200 medical questions, a team of health care professionals concluded that nearly 80% of the answers from ChatGPT were more nuanced, accurate and detailed than those shared by physicians. ChatGPT was no slouch on bedside manner, either. While less than 5% of doctor responses were judged to be “empathetic” or “very empathetic,” that figure shot up to 45% for answers provided by AI. “For the first time, we compared AI and physicians’ responses to the same patient messages, and AI won in a landslide,” said study leader John Ayers, vice chief of innovation with the division of infectious disease and global public health at the Qualcomm…  read on >  read on >