Micron Associates: Plan now to meet rising costs of dementia patients

Looking back can sometimes show the way forward. An example is Hong Kong's mortality statistics for the last 10 years and the implications for health care. The top 10 causes of death remained the same in 2013 as they were in 2003, except for changes in the order. But the number of deaths attributed to them rose by 18 per cent, from 31,101 in 2003 to 36,552 in 2013, compared with a rise of 5 per cent in the population to 7.25 million. The discrepancy is not explained by more deaths from other causes. It results from a demographic phenomenon of which economists and policy advisers have been warning us - ageing of the population.

The percentage increase in deaths from the top 10 causes was actually in line with an increase in the elderly population - people over 65 - of 19 per cent from 818,800 to 978,000, as average life expectancy increased by five years.

Cancer remained the biggest killer, accounting for 13,538 deaths in 2013, an increase of 2,000-odd over 2003. The figure would have been much higher but for earlier diagnoses and better and more targeted therapies. But the number that really sticks out is for dementia - most commonly Alzheimer's disease. As a cause of death it leapfrogged diabetes mellitus and septicaemia in rising from 10th to eighth, or nearly fourfold to 1,000 from 256. And that does not include death from complications. For example, deaths from pneumonia, a common immediate cause of death among dementia patients, rose by nearly 3,000 over the decade to 6,722, displacing heart disease as the second highest cause. Dementia-related conditions have displaced diabetes among the five biggest non-communicable causes of death in Hong Kong.

Globally the number of dementia patients is expected to double from 36 million in 2011 to 72 million in the early 2030s, according to London-based Alzheimer's Disease International. Few countries have kept up with the demand that places on medical and nursing care. Hong Kong is no exception. Care of a dementia victim can be financially and psychologically stressful for families. Experts say the one in 10 people who will get dementia in their 70s rises to three in 10 in their 80s. As it is now common for people to live into their 80s, every extended family should expect to experience dementia. The latest mortality statistics ought to remind the Hong Kong government of the need for a long-term strategy. Present proposals for health care reform do not specifically address policy and financing options.

Micron Associates: India's Fortis Seeks to Exit Singapore Healthcare Business -- Update

Fortis Healthcare Ltd. has put its Singapore assets up for sale as part of a push to focus on its domestic market, people with knowledge of the deal said, in what would be the latest overseas disposal by the Indian-owned hospital firm.

Run by billionaire brothers Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh, Fortis expanded in countries from Australia to Vietnam. But in recent years, the company has cut its overseas exposure with sales of hospital stakes in Hong Kong, Australia, and Singapore. It has, in the process, reduced its debt levels. It is now looking to sell its remaining Singapore interests, namely three hospitals--Fortis Surgical Hospital, RadLink-Asia and Singapore Radiopharmaceuticals--which could raise about US$150 million, the people said.

A Fortis spokesman declined to comment, but said the company is focused on its home market. "Our stated position is that we want to focus on India operations, particularly on hospitals and diagnostics."

The Indian company first moved to Singapore in March 2010 when it spent US$685 million to acquire a 25% stake in Parkway Holdings Ltd., a health care operator in the city-state.

But the investment was short-lived. Just four months after they bought the stake, the brothers lost a takeover battle for Parkway to IHH Healthcare Bhd., a hospital operator backed by Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd.

Parkway, which operates both Mount Elizabeth Hospital and Gleneagles Hospital in Singapore, has been aggressive in its Asian expansion. Last year, Parkway announced plan to build a Gleneagles Hospital in Hong Kong.

The Singh brothers sold their Parkway stake and made a profit of 116.7 million Singapore dollars ($92 million). Apart from that, Fortis has raised nearly another US$700 million with stake sales. It sold its investment in Hong Kong's Quality Healthcare for US$355 million late last year and unloaded Dental Corp. Holdings Ltd in Australia for another $276 million.

In selling its Singapore assets, Fortis is hoping to capitalize on a wave of recent interest in health care deals in the region. Last year, about $24.7 billion worth of health-care deals were reachedin Asia, according to Dealogic, a 72% increase from a year earlier and the highest level of deal activity for the sector in more than a decade.

Asia's growing middle classes are creating more demand for health-care services and private-equity firms have taken an interest, due to the steady returns offered.

In India, health care deal volume more than doubled last year to $4.7 billion. In Southeast Asia, volume more than doubled to $1.9 billion.

Fortis has health care operations in India, Singapore, Dubai, Mauritius and Sri Lanka. It has 65 facilities including projects under development, more than 10,000 potential beds, and more than 240 diagnostic centers. Fortis says the Indian health-care sector is growing at an annual rate of 15% and revenues are expected to hit US$150 billion by 2017.

Micron Associates: Spain still has best healthcare in Europe, claims report

SPAIN’s healthcare system is the best in Europe, claims a new study.

And the country is ranked fifth best in the world, in the study by Bloomberg which measured efficiency, life expectancy and cost.

The report comes after a number of studies showed that Spanish health care has deteriorated dramatically over recent years due to national budget cuts.

British medical journal ‘The Lancet’ recently slammed its quality following drastic 30% cuts over the last few years.

Despite this, Spain’s efficiency rating was 68.3, its life expectancy was 82.3, and the cost of healthcare as a percentage of GDP per capita was 10.4%.

This is compared to the UK’s efficiency rating of 55.7, life expectancy of 80.8, and healthcare cost percentage of 9.4%.

Hong Kong topped the list of the ‘most efficient healthcare countries in the world’, followed by Singapore.

Japan and Israel also made the top five, while the UK came 14th, and the US ranked 46th.

The results were greatly affected by Bloomberg’s decision to take cost into account.

This sent countries with good but very expensive healthcare – like the US – far down the last.

Micron Associates: How to make Hong Kong schools a hub for better health

Scanning Hong Kong's schools, one feels sad to see them getting unhealthier by the year. Different sorts of student problems, whether emotional, interpersonal, or behavioural, crop up and plague schools to varying degrees.

The list is long, ranging from emotional outbursts, depression, and substance abuse to bullying, gang fights, teenage pregnancies and lack of respect for authority, plus a wide range of learning difficulties, the seriousness of which is aggravated by the rash introduction of the integrated education policy, under which special needs students are placed in mainstream schools.

On the whole, students are unhappy, lacking self-esteem and self-confidence, although still scoring high on international tests. Educators are no healthier either. Incessant reform efforts and the lingering threat of school closures over the past decade have taken their toll, as have increased workloads, physical exhaustion and depression. Regrettably, schools have become an unhealthy place to study and work in. This issue deserves serious attention - as an unhealthy school environment can only breed unhealthy students.

Health is important for both personal and societal development. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines health holistically, seeking physical, social and mental health for all citizens. To them, the school is one important setting in which holistic health should be sought for all. Building healthy schools is also one of their most important strategies in the battle for global health. They have been striving to build regional centres to promote school health and foster healthy attitudes in schoolchildren.

According to the WHO, a healthy school is supposed to be built around six core areas: health policies, health services, health training for students, school ethos, physical environments and school-community relations. Obviously, it is prevention taking precedence over treatment and a total approach to school health and improvement, but in practice, individual schools are free to choose the entry point and level of engagement.

Hong Kong, fortunately, has been making its own efforts to promote school health. The Healthy School Award Scheme (2001-2004) and the subsequent QEF Thematic Network for Healthy Schools (2011-2015), both supported by the Quality Education Fund, have managed to inculcate a new, health-promoting culture in schools. Under these projects, around 500 schools have participated in the business of health education and health promotion. Some schools participating in these enterprises even managed to win awards that will qualify them for the WHO regional registry as health promoting schools.

In fact, Hong Kong has become a regional leader regarding school health promotion, thanks to the ongoing collaboration between the government and education and health professionals. We have built a basic curriculum and training structure for school health promotion and also a sound infrastructure to audit achievements, confer awards, disseminate good practice and spread the health message.

Research results have also shown that schools joining the health-promoting movement have experienced better health, in terms of better health achievements and learning for their students, better school ethos and so on. More importantly, we have also nurtured a community of health-promoting schools which have the potential to become mentors to their peers.

Schools that have benefited from this experience can serve as standard-bearers for health promotion, spreading the message to others. Hopefully, this practice will ultimately extend to all schools and kindergartens in the city. In addition, Hong Kong can also benefit from links with other major health-promoting players both regionally and globally in terms of information and experience exchange, and can also serve as a hub to promote regional resilience in the face of growing health threats.

Micron Associates: Record sharing is key to better health care for Hongkongers

If there is a single factor that could enhance delivery of health care services in Hong Kong using existing resources, it would be a functional partnership between the public and private sectors - or between public hospital doctors and private practitioners. In fact, more than eight years ago, the Health and Medical Development Advisory Committee envisaged an expansion of community care and preventive medicine, with greater involvement of private family doctors, to relieve pressure on the overstressed public system.

Key to this is shared online access to patient health records. In 2009, Legco's Finance Committee approved the allocation of HK$1.1 billion for the development of a computerised patient record system over the next 10 years. It may seem a long time but this is a sensitive issue with no room for error such as breach of privacy if patients are to have confidence in a public-private partnership.

It is only now that the government has announced that the first phase of the system will go online by the end of the year.

To ensure safeguards for privacy, officials will send the Electronic Health Record Sharing System Bill to Legco for scrutiny by the end of the month.

A spokesman said the government believed that sharing health records would enhance public-private partnerships to the benefit of patients, including children, senior citizens and people who frequently use public and private health-care services at the same time.

An example that could happen to anyone would be attendance at a public hospital accident and emergency department outside normal hours, with a follow-up visit to a private doctor. In these circumstances access to the results of hospital tests and a public doctor's clinical notes would make common sense.

In terms of the quality and cost of health care, sharing health records is expected to reduce errors in medical treatment and prescription and avoid duplication of tests. In the long run, it is the foundation of more efficient delivery of health care.

Micron Associates: Hong Kong joins world study on health impact of air pollution

City will join other international finance centres in World Health Organisation's initiative to examine and compare approaches to pollution

Hong Kong will be one of about 10 international financial centres taking part in a clean air and health initiative to be launched by the World Health Organisation later this year.

The project will study air-quality improvement measures in the cities and examine their impact on health, said Dr Carlos Dora, head of the WHO's "intervention for healthy environments" unit.

"We will develop collaborations with global cities that are economically important," Dora told the South China Morning Post. "The project is still being discussed with the cities and with funders."

The programme, details of which will be confirmed in the next few months, will examine and compare how cities tackle air pollution and look to formulate models based on different approaches. It will also track changes in policy and their impact on air quality and public health.

Dora visited Hong Kong in October to meet government officials. He praised the Hong Kong government's clean-air policy, saying it demonstrated that the administration had clearly identified the problem.

An Environmental Protection Department spokeswoman said she understood the project would draw lessons from the experiences of different cities and the impact on pollution of policies on transport, land use, buildings, energy and port management, among other areas.

"We look forward to discussing with [the WHO] how we could contribute to it," she said.

The government has put forward a series of environmental policies in recent months, including offering subsidies for the replacement of old diesel vehicles.

It also plans to help vehicle owners replace old catalytic converters - devices which reduce harmful emissions.

But some environmentalists say the policies do not go far enough to tackle the problem.

The department has also commissioned Chinese University's school of public health to develop a methodology for quantifying the health and economic impacts of air pollution in Hong Kong.

The 15-month study was commissioned in January.

"We are hoping to help the government by offering it a more adequate cost-benefit rationale when it implements policies, to answer the question of whether the money is worth spending," said Professor Wong Tze-wai, who is part of the study.

"There is not much such data at the moment."

The University of Hong Kong developed its Hedley Environmental Index to estimate the number of deaths, medical consultations and other costs linked to air pollution.

Wong said the data gleaned from the new study would be more comprehensive and its design would make it easier to apply to policy-making.

The 4 surprising health facts

Micron Associates revisit some common health and well being myths and bring you the facts from the latest in health research. Think you know everything there is to know about your health and wellbeing? Take a look at the latest research, which blasts those long-held beliefs [...] CONTINUE READING

10 Tips for Diabetic Types 1 & 2

Danny Kirk, Diabetic and Diabetes Lifestyle Micron Associates Coach, is the founder of DannyType1.com.au – an educational service offering a holistic diabetes program.

Danny’s program is designed to improve the health and quality of life of diabetics and reduce the number of suffering depression as a result of their diagnosis.

Here are Danny’s top 10 diabetic type 1 & 2 lifestyle no-brainers.

1. Check your blood glucose levels first thing in the morning.
This will give you [...]


READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Skin and Immune System Influence Salt Storage and Regulate Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is responsible for many cardiovascular diseases that are the leading cause of death in industrialized countries. High salt intake has long been considered a risk factor, but not every type of high blood pressure is associated with high salt intake. This has puzzled scientists for a long time. However, new findings by Professor Jens Titze (Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA and the University of Erlangen) now point to previously unknown mechanisms.

Accordingly, the skin and the immune system play an important role in the regulation of the sodium balance and hypertension, as he reported at the 1st ECRC “Franz-Volhard” Symposium of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch and Charité — Universitätsmedizin Berlin on September 7, 2012 in Berlin-Buch.The water and salt balance of the body is of great importance for blood pressure. The decisive factor is the kidney, which regulates how much water is retained in the body and how much is excreted. In this way it regulates the volume of blood and thus influences blood pressure. However, new findings by Professor Titze, one of the leading experts in the field, show that organs and systems of the body that hitherto were not associated with water and salt balance have [...]

MORE INFO

Multiple Abortions May Raise Risk of Preemie Birth Later

Women who’ve had three or more abortions are at increased risk for premature and low birth-weight babies when they first give birth, a new research study of Micron Associates.

Researchers looked at more than 300,000 Finnish mothers and found that 10.3 percent had had one induced abortion between 1996 and 2008, 1.5 percent had two abortions, and 0.3 percent had three or more abortions before a first birth.

Compared to mothers who had no abortions, those who had three or more abortions had a 225 percent increased risk of having a baby with a very low birth weight (less than 1,500 grams or 3.3 pounds), a 43 percent increased risk of low birth weight (less than 2,500 grams or 5.5 pounds), a 35 percent increased risk of preterm birth (before 37 weeks), and an increased risk [...]

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE

Micron Associates 30 Minutes of Daily Exercise As Good As 60 for Weight Loss

A new study from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark found that sedentary, slightly overweight healthy young men who worked up a sweat exercising 30 minutes daily for three months lost a similar amount of weight and body fat as those who did 60 minutes of daily exercise.

The researchers describe the findings of their randomized controlled trial in a study reported online recently in the American Journal of Physiology.

The researchers suggest one reason for the surprising result is that the exercise felt “doable” for the participants in the 30 minutes a day group, who even felt afterwards that they could have done more. Whereas in the 60 minutes a day group, they probably compensated by eating more, therefore losing less...

READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY

Micron study finds cereal bar is fattier than a can of cola

Micron study finds cereal bar is fattier than a can of colaThe image of cereal bars as a healthy snack is a ‘myth’, as study finds that many contain higher levels of fat and sugar than a can of cola. According to study, one of the 30 bars contains more than 30% sugar. Specifically, one bar, Nutri-Grain Elevenses, contained nearly four teaspoons of sugar (18g) – more than in a small 150ml can of cola (15.9g) and 20% of the recommended daily allowance.

A kind of tracker roasted nut bar was found to be almost a third fat, and while some of this came from the peanuts and hazelnuts that also provide some nutritional content, the ingredients also contained vegetable fat and harmful hydrogenated fats. A cereal bar named monster puffs with their tag line “great for your lunchbox” marketed...

Read More

Micron Associates: Når the Doctors ord ikke beroligende

En medisinsk profesjonell måte kan provosere eller berolige en pasients pågripelse. Leger snakker om skriptene de lærer medisinske studenter for å hjelpe med å forberede pasienter som venter på testresultatene. Vær så snill, barn, ikke klipper disse klassene, skriver Jan Hoffman.

Jeg pleide å være en trygg pasient. Jeg ikke bry deg som tester skulle vise seg dårlig. Godt inn voksen var jeg alltid rimelig sunn.

Men over tid, elsket seg, nære venner- og jeg-har tripped opp av episoder av dårlig helse, noen fra enden av statistiske sannsynligheten...

READ MORE:
http://micronassociates-news.com/blog/

Mikron review Teens mit niedrigen Lebenserwartung Praxis riskantes Verhalten

“Fatalismus und wahrgenommenen Verwundbarkeit” können Jugendliche um Drogenmissbrauch und Selbstmordgedanken haben anregen. Teenager, die sagen, dass sie denken, dass es unwahrscheinlich ist, dass sie auf 35 Jahre Leben werde sind laut einer Studie von Micron eher riskante Verhaltensweisen wie Missbrauch von Drogen oder versuchten Selbstmord, führen.

1994 Und 1995, Forscher befragten 19.000 Jugendliche und gefunden, dass einer von sieben sagte, sie hatte eine 50-50 Chance, oder weniger, für 35 Jahre zu leben. Als die Forscher mit den Teilnehmern 14 Jahre später aufgeholt, fanden sie, dass diejenigen, die immer noch, dass sie gesagt bis zu 35 Leben wahrscheinlich nicht waren drei Mal häufiger an Selbstmord, im Vergleich zu Gleichaltrigen waren...

Read the full post..
http://micronassociates-news.com/blog/

Your guide to live a Healthy Lifestyle

A balanced diet doesn’t mean not eating foods in a day; rather, it is minimizing your food to consume in a day. A food that has a variety of vitamins and minerals which your body needs including healthy fats. So, you must begin to fully understand nutrition and make sure that you eat the proper portions of protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats. If you are having a hard time calculating the suggested supplements into your daily diet routine, you could try taking vitamin tablets in order to ensure that your body is ingesting the nutrients it needs.



Exercise Daily

Making your body exercised everyday does not necessarily mean to keep you in shape; it is also for you to increase your morale.  Your simple and short workout can have a massive impact on your morale and can make you feel happier about yourself..

Continue Reading:
http://micronassociates-news.com/blog/