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Healthcare Basics

New Definition of High Blood Pressure

Changes in Guidelines Affect Millions

January 10, 2018

Jerry Gulley

In hopes that patients will talk to their doctors about high blood pressure and possible treatments sooner, heart experts have changed the guidelines for the condition. The changes will greatly increase the number of US adults who have high blood pressure.

High bold pressure is now defined as a reading of 130 over 80 and above. Previously a reading of 140 over 90 and above was the definition of high blood pressure. This is the first time in 14 years that the definition has changed.

With the change in guidelines, the percent of US adults living with high blood pressure increased to 46% from 32%. That is nearly half of all adults. And younger adults – those under 45 – saw even bigger increases.

Many people live with high blood pressure and don’t know it. Getting a blood pressure reading by a health professional is the only way to know for sure – there are usually no signs or symptoms. Some symptoms may appear if blood pressure rises or falls quickly:

Dull headaches
Dizzy spells
Unusual nosebleeds

High blood pressure can be deadly if not treated, so it is important to take a diagnosis seriously. Lifestyle changes can help control high blood pressure:

Don’t smoke or use other tobacco products
Limit use of ibuprofen and aspirin
Keep a healthy weight
Exercise regularly – try to get it 30 minutes of moderate exercise five days a week

Talk to a health professional to get more information about high blood pressure.

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Jerry Gulley currently serves as EdLogics’ Chief Content Officer. He trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York and has held positions with Cooking Light, Health, and AllRecipes.

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Healthy Recipes

Cinnamon Popcorn

The Perfect Snack for Fall

December 5, 2017

Jerry Gulley

Popcorn is an addictive snack, but it’s often loaded with extra fat and sodium. This recipe starts with air-popped popcorn and adds a hint of sweetness from cinnamon – making it a perfect snack for chilly, cozy fall evenings in front of the fire. You’ll want to make extra to share.

Cinnamon Popcorn

Serving size: 1 1/4 cup

Makes 10 servings

Ingredients

12 cups popcorn (air popped, with no salt or fat)

2 tablespoons light brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Instructions

Combine brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a small bowl. Place popcorn in a large bowl and drizzle with butter; toss to coat. Sprinkle popcorn with sugar mix and toss well.

Nutrition
Calories 65, total fat 3 g, sat fat 1.5 g, mono fat 0.7 g, poly fat 0.2 g, protein 1.1 g, carbohydrate 9.2 g, fiber 1.3 g, cholesterol 6 mg, sodium 47 mg, calcium 6 mg

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Jerry Gulley currently serves as EdLogics’ Chief Content Officer. He trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York and has held positions with Cooking Light, Health, and AllRecipes.

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Industry Events

The Social-Validation Feedback Loop

November 11, 2017

Fred Goldstein

Recently Sean Parker, the first President of Facebook, issued some harsh criticism of social networks in an interview on the website Axios. He claims they work to exploit “a vulnerability in human psychology” and that those networks will eventually “consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible.” He claims the networks do this by creating a system to generate addictive loops that “sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever.”

That “social-validation feedback loop”, as Sean called it, is very powerful and used by all of the major social media sites which continue to grow and consume our time and attention. But what if we could take those same techniques Facebook used to grow to over 2 billion active users a month and applied them to something positive, like health education?

Recently, Tom Chamberlain, PharmD, CEO and Founder of EdLogics gave a presentation to the Global Action Summit on the Gamification of Health. In his presentation, Dr. Chamberlain described various types of gaming technologies, such as Video Games, Mobile Apps, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Interactive Learning, and how they are being used in the medical field

Gaming Technologies

Chamberlain went on to discuss the key principles of gamification including instant rewards, milestones, status and competition and described how a “little dopamine hit” is generated through playing these games and through the use of gamification techniques.

Gamification Principles

Driving engagement and facilitating behavior changes are the “holy grails” of health improvement programs. If we can get individuals, employees, plan members, and/or communities more engaged in understanding and acting on their own health, we can see vast improvements in a population’s health and lowered costs. This is why the area of gamification is so exciting.

EdLogics is applying this “social validation feedback loop” to the problem of health literacy – the major issue associated with poor health outcomes and higher costs. It’s pretty clear that if a person does not understand their health, their health issues, the healthcare system or their health insurance, they won’t be able to maintain or improve their health, select the right provider, adhere to treatment, or more.

These approaches are not just fun and games when it comes to health, they are using real science in an effort to drive behavior change and improve one’s life.

If you’d like more information on the EdLogics platform for your employees, health plan or as a broker/consultant, please use the contact page.

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Fred Goldstein is the founder and president of Accountable Health, LLC, a healthcare consulting firm focused on population health. He has over 30 years of experience in population health, disease management, HMO and hospital operations. He is an expert in population health, care management...read more

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Health Insurance

The Potential CVS and Aetna Merger

November 9, 2017

Jerry Gulley

The healthcare industry, the retail pharmacy industry and in fact lots of industries, were buzzing with the news that mega pharmacy chain CVS was pursuing a merger with Aetna, one of America’s oldest insurers. While the trend toward consolidation in healthcare is not new, a deal this size would be unprecedented in multiple ways. And the combined entity would have far-reaching implications for consumers, for employers and even the US government.

The negotiations are highly confidential, so any details about the deal, or the motivations behind it, are purely speculative. But Fred Goldstein, founder of Accountable Health Inc., offers a unique viewpoint on the merger. Goldstein points to a flaw in the Affordable Care Act known as the Medical Loss Ratio requirement.

“This requirement was put in place as a way to ensure that health plans did not make money by underutilizing medical care. But it had the unintended consequence of insuring that costs never went down and here’s why.

Let’s assume that a hypothetical health plan offers a product at a $5,000 premium. Based on this premium, they must spend 80% or $4,000 on Medical Care and the remaining $1,000 goes to cover administrative expenses and profit. At the same time, it’s fairly common knowledge that 30% and possibly more of healthcare costs are associated with waste, fraud and abuse.”

Visit The Health Care Blog for the full story.

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Jerry Gulley currently serves as EdLogics’ Chief Content Officer. He trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York and has held positions with Cooking Light, Health, and AllRecipes.

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Health Insurance, Health Literacy, Healthcare Basics

Preventing Emergency Department Visits With Education

October 9, 2017

Jerry Gulley

Hospital emergency departments, as the name implies, are meant to be used for true emergencies. Unfortunately many trips to the ER are not life-threatening and are in fact both unnecessary and avoidable. A study published in 2013 found that only 29% of ER visits reviewed were actual emergency situations. Less than half of those visits that were not an emergency required medical attention but could have been treated in a primary care facility. One in four did not require immediate attention.

Low health literacy leads many patients to the ER when they could have received care at a less expensive setting – like at their doctor’s office or at a walk-in clinic. It’s also known that patients with low health literacy are more likely to make return visits to ERs within two weeks. Some barriers for patients with low literacy include:

Not understanding or following doctor’s instructions for managing chronic conditions.
Misunderstanding information they find about symptoms online.
Not recognizing the importance of proper preventative care.

More recent research, presented at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Annual Meeting in Orlando, explored how low health literacy was related to preventable ER visits. The study looked at over 1,200 participants and a total of 4,444 ER visits. Over 10% of the visits were found to have been preventable.

Of the preventable visits, over 60% led to hospital admission. (The average cost of a hospital stay is estimated to be close to $10,000.) When researchers looked at the health literacy of the participants, those with lower health literacy were over twice as likely to have made a preventable ER visit. Having below an eighth-grade reading level was the definition used for low literacy.

The most common preventable conditions leading to ER visits included chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), urinary tract infections and long-term complications from diabetes.

While not surprising, the study illustrates that patients with low literacy are more likely to make preventable visits to ER and other emergency services. And increasing the literacy of patients can help dramatically decrease unnecessary healthcare costs.

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Jerry Gulley currently serves as EdLogics’ Chief Content Officer. He trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York and has held positions with Cooking Light, Health, and AllRecipes.

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