PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Telemedicine exams result in antibiotics as often as regular exams, study finds

2015-05-27
(Press-News.org) Patients treated for an acute respiratory infection by a doctor on a telephone or live video are as likely to be prescribed an antibiotic as patients who are treated by a physician face-to-face for the same illness, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

However, the patients treated virtually were more likely to be prescribed a broad-spectrum antibiotic -- concerning since overuse of the drugs increases costs and contributes to antibiotic resistance, according to the study.

Researchers say both treatment settings had high rates of inappropriate prescribing for conditions such as bronchitis, which is consistent with prior research that about half of outpatient antibiotic prescriptions are not clinically necessary. The findings are published online by the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

"The pattern of treatment offered to patients who saw a physician face-to-face versus those who spoke with a physician on the telephone was not substantially different," said Lori Usher-Pines, the study's lead author and a policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "However, we found the antibiotics prescribed during telemedicine 'visits' raised some specific quality concerns that require further attention."

RAND researchers say the use of direct-to-consumer telemedicine programs are increasing rapidly, despite a lack of research about whether such programs are offering care of comparable quality to other types of medical services. This study is the first of its kind to assess quality of direct-to-consumer telemedicine as compared to in-person care for common acute respiratory infections.

Interest has grown because of the shortage of primary care physicians, which will likely worsen as more Americans acquire medical coverage under the federal Affordable Care Act. Telemedicine is one of the alternatives touted as a way to better provide primary health care without greatly expanding the number of doctors.

RAND researchers studied about 1,700 patient "visits" for an acute respiratory infection from April 2012 to October 2013 by Teladoc, one of the nation's largest providers of telemedicine services. Teladoc is different from most other telemedicine efforts because the company connects directly with patients, rather than providing specialty visits or offering consults for in-hospital care.

The patients with the telemedicine visits were covered through a health plan offered by the California Public Employees' Retirement System, which provides health insurance to the state's public workers. The experiences of patients who used Teladoc were compared to about 64,000 patients who visited a doctor's office for a similar medical problem.

Researchers say the higher use of broad-spectrum antibiotics by the telemedicine doctors may be a result of direct-to-consumer companies practicing conservatively, based upon limited diagnostic information about their patients.

The results suggest that telemedicine providers should consider quality-improvement initiatives to change physicians behavior, as well as direct education to patients to influence demand for unnecessary antibiotics, according to the study.

INFORMATION:

Support for the study was provided by the California HealthCare Foundation. Other authors of the study are Andrew Mulcahy, Gerald Hunter and Rachel Burns of RAND, David Cowling of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, and Dr. Ateev Mehrotra of RAND and the Harvard Medical School.

RAND Health is the nation's largest independent health policy research program, with a broad research portfolio that focuses on health care costs, quality and public health preparedness, among other topics.



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Autism and rare childhood speech disorder often coincide

2015-05-27
Some children with autism should undergo ongoing screenings for apraxia, a rare neurological speech disorder, because the two conditions often go hand-in-hand, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. Over the course of a three-year study, 64 percent of children initially diagnosed with autism were found to also have apraxia. The study also showed that the commonly used Checklist for Autism Spectrum Disorder (CASD) accurately diagnoses autism in children with apraxia. "Children with apraxia have difficulty coordinating the use of their tongue, lips, ...

Experiment confirms quantum theory weirdness: ANU media release

Experiment confirms quantum theory weirdness: ANU media release
2015-05-27
The bizarre nature of reality as laid out by quantum theory has survived another test, with scientists performing a famous experiment and proving that reality does not exist until it is measured. Physicists at The Australian National University (ANU) have conducted John Wheeler's delayed-choice thought experiment, which involves a moving object that is given the choice to act like a particle or a wave. Wheeler's experiment then asks - at which point does the object decide? Common sense says the object is either wave-like or particle-like, independent of how we measure ...

Physicists solve quantum tunneling mystery: ANU media release

Physicists solve quantum tunneling mystery: ANU media release
2015-05-27
An international team of scientists studying ultrafast physics have solved a mystery of quantum mechanics, and found that quantum tunneling is an instantaneous process. The new theory could lead to faster and smaller electronic components, for which quantum tunneling is a significant factor. It will also lead to a better understanding of diverse areas such as electron microscopy, nuclear fusion and DNA mutations. "Timescales this short have never been explored before. It's an entirely new world," said one of the international team, Professor Anatoli Kheifets, from The ...

Protein scaffold

Protein scaffold
2015-05-27
This news release is available in Japanese. Right before a cell starts to divide to give birth to a daughter cell, its biochemical machinery unwinds the chromosomes and copies the millions of protein sequences comprising the cell's DNA, which is packaged along the length of the each chromosomal strand. These copied sequences also need to be put back together before the two cells are pulled apart. Mistakes can lead to genetic defects or cancerous mutations in future cell generations. Just like raising a building requires scaffolding be erected first, cells ...

Omitting market risk factor creates critical flaw in case-shiller home price indices

2015-05-27
The method used to calculate Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the most trusted benchmark for U.S. residential real estate prices, contains a flaw that likely could lead to misstating its monthly estimates, according to a newly published study led by faculty at Florida Atlantic University. The paper published in the Journal of Real Estate Research identifies an important deficiency in the Weighted Repeated Sales (WRS) method developed by economists Karl Case and Robert Shiller, which compares repeat sales of the same homes in an effort to study home ...

Hip fractures in the elderly caused by falls, not osteoporosis

2015-05-27
Anti-osteoporotic medication is not an effective means for preventing hip fractures among the elderly, concludes a study recently published in the BMJ. Proximal femoral fractures (i.e., hip fractures) occur in the world at a rate of 1.5 million per year, or 7,000 per year in Finland. As most such fractures occur among older people, their number is expected to grow as the population ages. Hip fractures often lead to permanently reduced mobility, quality of life and general health, as well as result in significant social costs. Since the early 1990s, anti-osteoporotic ...

Challenging students benefit from limit setting

2015-05-27
The teacher's interaction style can either foster or slow down the development of math skills among children with challenging temperaments. This was shown in the results of the study "Parents, teachers and children's learning" carried out at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Ph.D. Jaana Viljaranta, along with her colleagues, studied the role of teachers' interaction styles in academic skill development among children with different temperamental characteristics. A child's challenging temperament may show up in the classroom, for example, as low task-orientation ...

The analogy that builds human thought

2015-05-27
When Niels Bohr hypothesised his model of atom with the electrons orbiting the nucleus just like satellites orbit a planet, he was engaging in analogical reasoning. Bohr transferred to atoms the concept of "a body orbiting another", that is, he transferred a relation between objects to other, new objects. Analogical reasoning is an extraordinary ability that is unique to the human mind, is not seen in animals (except very rarely in primates) and that forms the basis of highly sophisticated human thoughts. Scientists have wondered about the origin of this cognitive function: ...

Experiments in the realm of the impossible

Experiments in the realm of the impossible
2015-05-27
Jena (Germany) March 1938: The Italian elementary particle physicist Ettore Majorana boarded a post ship in Naples, heading for Palermo. But he either never arrives there - or he leaves the city straight away - ever since that day there has been no trace of the exceptional scientist and until today his mysterious disappearance remains unresolved. Since then, Majorana, a pupil of the Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi, has more or less been forgotten. What the scientific world does remember though is a theory about nuclear forces, which he developed, and a very particular elementary ...

Hodgkin's lymphoma: The treatment can have late sequelae

2015-05-27
Hodgkin's lymphoma--cancer of the lymph nodes--arises in more than 150 children and adolescents in Germany each year. Nine out of ten patients survive the disease, thanks to the highly effective treatments that are now available. Depending on the type of treatment given, however, there may be late sequelae, as discussed by Wolfgang Dörffel and colleagues in an original article in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2015; 112: 320-7). These authors studied the question of which types of treatment were more likely to be followed ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Call for papers: 14th Asia-Pacific Conference on Transportation and the Environment (APTE 2025)

A novel disturbance rejection optimal guidance method for enhancing precision landing performance of reusable rockets

New scan method unveils lung function secrets

Searching for hidden medieval stories from the island of the Sagas

Breakthrough study reveals bumetanide treatment restores early social communication in fragile X syndrome mouse model

Neuroscience leader reveals oxytocin's crucial role beyond the 'love hormone' label

Twelve questions to ask your doctor for better brain health in the new year

Microelectronics Science Research Centers to lead charge on next-generation designs and prototypes

Study identifies genetic cause for yellow nail syndrome

New drug to prevent migraine may start working right away

Good news for people with MS: COVID-19 infection not tied to worsening symptoms

Department of Energy announces $179 million for Microelectronics Science Research Centers

Human-related activities continue to threaten global climate and productivity

Public shows greater acceptance of RSV vaccine as vaccine hesitancy appears to have plateaued

Unraveling the power and influence of language

Gene editing tool reduces Alzheimer’s plaque precursor in mice

TNF inhibitors prevent complications in kids with Crohn's disease, recommended as first-line therapies

Twisted Edison: Bright, elliptically polarized incandescent light

Structural cell protein also directly regulates gene transcription

Breaking boundaries: Researchers isolate quantum coherence in classical light systems

Brain map clarifies neuronal connectivity behind motor function

Researchers find compromised indoor air in homes following Marshall Fire

Months after Colorado's Marshall Fire, residents of surviving homes reported health symptoms, poor air quality

Identification of chemical constituents and blood-absorbed components of Shenqi Fuzheng extract based on UPLC-triple-TOF/MS technology

'Glass fences' hinder Japanese female faculty in international research, study finds

Vector winds forecast by numerical weather prediction models still in need of optimization

New research identifies key cellular mechanism driving Alzheimer’s disease

Trends in buprenorphine dispensing among adolescents and young adults in the US

Emergency department physicians vary widely in their likelihood of hospitalizing a patient, even within the same facility

Firearm and motor vehicle pediatric deaths— intersections of age, sex, race, and ethnicity

[Press-News.org] Telemedicine exams result in antibiotics as often as regular exams, study finds