According to the Commonwealth Fund the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy among the ten highest income OECD countries. We have the highest chronic disease burden and our obesity rates are twice the average of …
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[DISPLAY_ULTIMATE_SOCIAL_ICONS] In the US, consumers reign supreme. American retailers understand their customers and use data to influence what they buy, what they pay, and when they return for more. With more than 68 percent of …
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Visionary Elon Musk fears it. Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking worried about it. Microsoft’s Bill Gates embraces it. Science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick wrote about androids having the capacity to dream because of it. At HIMSS …
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Although achieving herd immunity is critical to ending the pandemic, it makes sense to look at this task regionally, rather than by country or state.
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We have two choices to crush this pandemic: 1) Vaccination of a large percentage of our population, and 2) Herd immunity. The responsibility of all of us in healthcare is to follow the science, share what we know with the public, and be careful in how we do so.
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Our country now faces the most significant public health crisis in more than a century. The COVID-19 virus has upended our lives and put all of us at risk for illness. As we approach the …
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In Phase 2, businesses expand their services and modify their business practices (e.g., limited seating in restaurants). The COVID-19 disease incidence rate will plateau with a steady number of new cases reported daily. Although researchers are hard at work, we will not have a meaningful treatment or vaccine. As we enter Phase 2 of the pandemic, provider organizations should adjust to the changes in healthcare delivery to take advantage of the opportunities presented.
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During normal times, managers often make decisions based on their knowledge and experience; analysis of data to varying degrees informs that decision-making process. Circumstances change at an easily manageable pace, errors in judgment can be corrected, and the impact of those poor choices is often insignificant. During a healthcare crisis, however, the cost of being wrong is exponential.
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No country will be fully safe until all citizens are vaccinated. This is the only way to achieve a high enough level of heard immunity to halt the pandemic.
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Rather than considering patient information, and in particular genetic testing results, as private property to be used for private good, perhaps it is time to think of our population’s medical information as private property, owned and controlled by the patient, to be used for public good.
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