HIT or miss
The Economist, A special report on health care and technology, April 18, 2009, pg. 4

Why don’t we in the United States have digitized medical records? I’ll spare you the diatribe. This article makes a great case for why now is a great time to do what we should have done long ago. Digitizing medical records will go a long way towards modernizing our atrocious health care “system”.

The RAND Corporation, an American think-tank, examined the potential benefits of digitising health systems in a 2005 report. It estimated that, if 90% of hospitals and doctors in America were to adopt HIT over 15 years, the health system could save some $77 billion a year from efficiency gains (see chart 1). If health-and-safety benefits are taken into account, the gains could double, saving about 6% of the $2.6 trillion that will be spent on health care in America this year.

Cost savings is a good enough reason.

A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in January compared a group of hospitals in Texas that has adopted advanced HIT systems with a group that has not. It found that the first group suffered 15% fewer deaths and 16% fewer complications, as well as enjoying lower costs.

Fewer deaths and complications makes this a no-brainer.

In March Kaiser Permanente published evidence in Health Affairs showing that its digital efforts have cut visits per patient by an average of 26%, thanks to more e-mail and telephone consultations. That saves money and increases efficiency, but patients seem to like it too.

Telephone and email consultations in lieu of expensive doctor visits sounds good to me.

The giant fiscal-stimulus package passed earlier this year by Congress includes nearly $20 billion to create a national health-information network, including incentives for hospitals and doctors to adopt EHRs. But various obstacles could yet get in the way.

Thank god those damn Republicans were voted out of power!

ehr · health · hit · insurance · technology · the economist

Unfinished Business
The Economist, Feb 7th-13th 2009

Charles Darwin ranks among scientists right at the very top with Einstein and Newton. Acceptance of his theory is depressingly low. Especially in the United States. The idea is quite simple and obvious.

The idea of evolution by natural selection is not hard to grasp. It just requires connecting some uncontentious propositions. These are that organisms vary from one another, even within a species, and that new variation can arise from time to time; that some of this variation is passed from parent to offspring; and that more individuals are born than can exist in the available space (or be sustained by the available resources). The consequence is what Darwin described in his book as a “struggle for existence”. The weakest are eliminated in this struggle. The fit survive. The survivors pass on their traits to their offspring. Over enough time, this differential transmission of characters will lead to the formation of a new species.

I should say it is obvious now, after many years of exposure to the theory and the plethora of supporting evidence. Why then, is the theory of evolution rejected by so many?

(more…)

charles darwin · evolution · Science · the economist