Japan’s Nuclear Fallout: The Health Impact
The before-and-after pictures of the tsunami in Japan are heart-wrenching. And things look to be getting worse. From the New York Times: “With hydrogen gas bubbling up from chemical reactions…
What Mental Health Parity Has Wrought
Psychiatrists now practice like primary care physicians: short meetings and a prescription pad: Dr. Levin, 68, first established a private practice in 1972, when talk therapy was in its heyday……
Insurer Has E-Security Problem
For all of the enthusiasm of President Obama’s digital initiatives within the scope of healthcare reform, the specter of securing data in healthcare related databases is always a required consideration.…
Bullying and Social Hierarchies in Schools
Bullying and other forms of social aggression affect nearly 30% of US students per school year. According to some estimates, up to 160,000 students skip school each day to…
Virus Wipes Out Medical Records at Hospital in India
This is a good warning for hospitals everywhere. According to the story the hospital was short on IT people. As you can see this is a big hospital seeing 15,000…
Waiting for the Robot Wheelchair
I’ve taken a lot of grief in the past for my prediction that robots will play a key role in nursing over the long term. There will still be jobs…
Teenage Cancer Survivor Perseveres by Blogging
When Clarissa was 13 she entered Johns Hopkins Hospital to be treated for relapsed acute leukemia knowing full well that she had only a 40% chance of survival. Today she…
Mental Health Cost Cuts Strain Law Enforcement
So-called austerity measures, a strategy in many Republican-dominated state legislatures to control spending, are getting increased attention nationally, spurred by the international news story that is Wisconsin’s budget battle. Within…
Really Oxfam? Really?
Oxfam hasn’t let pesky little things like representative household surveys and impact evaluation results get in the way of their condemnation of Ghana’s health insurance program. The organization recently issued…
Why Pilot Programs are a Waste of Time and Money
President Obama has repeatedly given us his vision of how to lower the cost of health care and raise its quality: Find out what works; then get everyone else to…
