Erik Gulbrandsen, DO

Thank you for attending my session on Population Managment. Below are links to the presentation and appendix:

Presentation

Appendix

Erik

BYU has a great opportunity right now to go to the Big XII, but it seems they will turn down the invitation because they don't want to offend the WCC. I can understand these concerns, especially since they have offended the MWC and WAC in the last ten years. If the contract is more than a one year contract, then I can also understand their concern. However, I don't think the contract is more than a year and I also think the WCC will understand.

I hope BYU accepts the honor and furthers their mission by joining the Big XII.

$99 for an HP touchpad? Count me in. That is an amazing deal. I know that webOS is going to be dead, but there will be an android port. In fact, the name is called "TouchDroid". Check it out if you are interested.

http://costcentral.com

Today is my last day of a much needed vacation. I didn't go out and do a lot of amazing things; I stayed home to help get the house in order. Having a new baby makes things very difficult and my dear wife just hasn't been sleeping well.

I'm not ready to go back to work. So many things I needed to do that I just didn't have the time for.

My dear wife delivered our fifth child, a baby boy, on Friday. He weighed 8 lbs 2 oz and was two weeks early.

Both are doing well and Annalisa sure is happy to have me home for the weekend. Due to the new ACGME duty hour rules, I had to manage our in-patient list from the recovery room on Friday. She didn't like that at all.

I have recently become a big fan of Oxford University's Center for Evidence Based Medicine, which can be found at http://cebm.net. As I'm training the new interns, I'm placing an emphasis on EBM in our clinical decision making and it is clear that we don't teach EBM enough in medical school.

As hospital organizations around are moving to organize their ACOs and PHOs, I reflected on population managment today.

EHRs, it seems, weren't built to provide population management. Have we not placed on emphasis on quality of care here in the US? Maybe that is why we rank poorly according to the WHO data (I still have epidemiologic reservations to this data). Regardless, it is fascinating that the product best suited to provide population managment, the EHR, is actually the element that is inhibiting ACOs from developing quality population managment.

I've been very pleased with the changes. The family cell phone bill went from $150 a month to $75 a month, and with very little changes to our daily routine. Now, what to do with the "saved" money...

So, I am fed up with spending $30 a month on a texting plan that has a marginal cost of zero to the cell phone companies. I'm not so much annoyed that their marginal cost is zero, my concern is that it costs me $30. So, I have been quite happy using Google Voice to route all of my text messages...for free (well, free as in beer).

What is sad about chronic pain is that it can cause sleep disorders. To make matters worse, not sleeping well can increase the symptoms of chronic pain. It is a vicious cycle that needs to be broken. I am an advocate of effective sleep, even though I myself don't get sufficient sleep.