From Self-Checkout to Self-Diagnosis: Healthcare Service

Narrator: 0:00

Welcome to the MedEvidence Monday Minute radio show hosted by Kevin Gettings of WSOS St. Augustine Radio and powered by ENCORE Research Group. Each Monday morning, Dr. Michael Koren calls in to bring you the latest medical updates with insightful discussions. MedEvidence is where we help you navigate the real truth behind medical research, with both a clinical and research perspective. So sit back, relax and get ready to learn about the truth behind the data in medicine and health care. This is MedEvidence.

Kevin Geddings: 0:30

Dr. Michael Koren is joining us live on the studio line, as he does on Monday mornings. We appreciate him. Of course he with ENCORE Research Group, learn more by going to ENCOREDocs. com, that's spelled with an ENCOREd ocs. com. And also we'd like you to check out another website, a great resource for health care information MedEvidence. com. That's MedEvidence. com and Dr. Koren. This morning we thought we would talk a little bit about service, right?

Dr. Michael Koren: 0:56

Morning Kevin. Let's talk about service. We're in the holiday season and we're in a season where it'd be wonderful to serve each other. But when you go to a lot of the department stores, what do you get? You get self-service terminals or checkout aisles and, ironically, some of them seem to have more employees helping you self-serve.

Kevin Geddings: 1:17

Yeah, you ever notice that. The one fundamental thing I notice with grocery stores is when they expect us to weigh the produce. You know.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:26

Exactly yeah it's pretty funny. It gets to this concept that we're there maybe once a week in some stores, you're there maybe once a month or twice a year and you're supposed to know all the nuances of their self-checkout areas. And, quite frankly, I think most people myself included go to stores in part because we want service. We're looking for service. Human beings desire that from one another and in an advanced economy that's probably the most important thing that we can give each other.

Kevin Geddings: 1:55

Yeah, absolutely. It's also something that is the way you all approach people who participate in these clinical trials and the like, because people are always nervous when anything is health care related. I can speak on behalf of we consumers, we patients, because we feel like we don't know what's going on and we definitely feel like we're not in charge.

Dr. Michael Koren: 2:16

Oh, totally, totally. And I mentioned the self-service concept in retail, but it's also true in medicine. I think people are more and more frustrated by the fact that they're not getting the service from their medical providers like they used to, and I certainly get a lot of calls from people who are exposed to clinical practice that complain about that, and I'm proud to say that I don't get those calls. On the research side, people love the service, they love the nurturing, they love the interaction and it's actually one of my motivations for getting more involved in research over the years, because that service element.

Kevin Geddings: 2:52

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I participated in clinical trials with ENCORE Research Group and you get to sit down for 20, 30 minutes. They ask you questions about your health care. They slowly go through and take your blood pressure and your pulse and while they're asking you questions, it's a wholly different experience than running into your typical urgent care, for example. And that's by design right Dr. Koren.

Dr. Michael Koren: 3:18

Absolutely Well. It's by design, in part because we have this responsibility to provide this information to the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory authorities, so we have to be detailed. But it's also by culture, so our people are trained to help every single person that touches our organization have a positive experience and learn something about their health. So we love to say that it doesn't matter what medicine you get when you interact with us. We will do everything we possibly can to make sure that it's a learning experience and that you come out of it understanding your situation better and ultimately able to make decisions for you and your family in a more knowledgeable state.

Kevin Geddings: 4:01

Yeah, and to further illustrate that, in terms of helping people understand what's going on with their health care and with health care in general, that's really one of the prime motivators for the MedEvidencecom website, right, Dr. Koren?

Dr. Michael Koren: 4:16

It is. It is it's really based on feedback that people are confused. People check out Dr. Google and typically get some information that's designed to sell them something and they don't get objective information. And they certainly don't get objective information from doctors that are just interested in expressing the data and the science to our patient populations. And there's some things in medicine that we know very well. There's some things in medicine that we don't know well, and the research process is to help us understand the things we don't know as well and make that more understandable for everybody.

Kevin Geddings: 4:53

Yeah, did you ever? Look at any item that you look up on, Dr. Google. You know Google, I think, if you Google Acne and it eventually leads to death. Everything leads to death, Dr. Koren.

Dr. Michael Koren: 5:05

Totally. I have lots of friends and colleagues call me up just scared to death when they read something about Google and putting it into the proper clinical context is so important. So yeah, sometimes it turns out to be severe. I just had a good friend of mine call me last week about his wife who was having some unusual chest symptoms and she was not high risk for coronary artery disease. It went through the whole process and turned out that she needed a stent. It had a very severe coronary lesion. You never know. This was a you know otherwise a woman in her 60s who was doing well busy, stressed in her day-to-day life because of work, but was ignoring a symptom that turned out to be very important, but it was vague, which is typical for a lot of women. They don't have classic symptoms of coronary artery disease, but if you looked at it on Google, you'd either go down the road of just poo-pooing it or thinking that you're about to die, when in fact just had to go through a process to get it properly evaluated.

Kevin Geddings: 6:08

Yeah, yeah, no, that's true. Well, a good source, though, for information that you can trust and it's easily digestible is to go to MedEvidence. com Go to MedEvidence. com. That's MedEvidence. com. Dr. Koren spends a lot of his time doing things like we're doing right here on Monday mornings, where he spends some time talking to us, but he also has a variety of podcasts and other video that's out there. That really helps explain a lot of these issues, and we encourage you to reach out and learn more. Go to MedEvidence. com. If you would like to be like me and participate in clinical research, go to ENCOREdocs. com. They have offices right here in St. John's County, making it super convenient for you. Go to ENCOREdocs. com. Before we let you go, Dr. Koren. Is there a particular clinical trial going on these days that you wish more people here in Greater St. Augustine knew about?

Dr. Michael Koren: 6:54

We're doing a lot of work in the heart failure area and I would strongly encourage anybody that's been diagnosed with heart failure to give us a call. The studies vary there are some that are using technology to help people stay in the hospital. There are others that are using state-of-the-art drugs that are actually improving the muscle function of patients with heart disease. That would be great. Now is a great time to give us a call. Either schedule something now or early next year, and maybe we can help you with your heart failure problem.

Kevin Geddings: 7:24

Yeah, absolutely. If it's you or somebody that you care about, someone in your family, a loved one, a friend they're dealing with heart failure issues. Once again, go to ENCOREdocs. com or call locally here in Northeast Florida and St. John's County, 904-730-0166. Once again, that's the number for ENCORE Research Group here locally to participate in clinical research 904-730-0166. Dr. Michael Koren, thank you very much for taking time out today. We appreciate you and we'll talk soon, okay.

Dr. Michael Koren: 7:56

It's my pleasure. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and we'll talk next year.

Narrator: 8:00

Thanks for joining the MedEvidence podcast. To learn more, head over to MedEvidence. com or subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.