John Snow, the English physician who removed the handle from the Broad Street pump and halted the 1854 London cholera epidemic, is considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology. His work led to fundamental …
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Data collection and its use surrounds us. Our mobile phones trace where we live, work, buy our groceries, and visit friends. Today’s trip to some online shopping sites shows me ads for puppies (my children …
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One of the best parts about predicting the future is how rarely the soothsayer is held accountable. The famous Michel de Nostredame, better known as Nostradamus, is popularly credited with predicting the rise of Hitler …
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Information technology systems are evolving. The goal is to use healthcare information technology to identify the best care processes and use the technology to ensure that these best processes are utilized worldwide.
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Analytics software presents a growing ever-present danger to organizations that do not understand how to best utilize the reports generated. Effective data governance requires that an overall objective for the analytics be set in advance of running reports.
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Despite the evolution and investment in EMRs over the past five decades, little evidence exists that all this digitization is making a difference in quality, safety, or cost.
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The word “gerrymander” comes from the pairing of Gerry’s name with the shape of one of the contorted districts north of Boston that resembled a salamander (see Figure 1). This gerrymandering of the Massachusetts Senate proved so successful that although the Federalist party won both the election for governor and a majority of the Massachusetts House, they failed to win the Senate, then controlled by the Democratic-Republicans.
The sophisticated analytics that allow for the gerrymandering of election districts also offer a model that can be applied in the delivery of population health services.
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On February 27, 2017, President Trump said, ”Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated.” Well, Mr. President it is complicated and yes, we all knew.
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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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A miscalculation by just seven milliseconds is the difference between hitting a ball fair or foul. For comparison, a blink of the eye takes about 150 milliseconds.
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