RAND

This entry is part 21 of 44 in the series Words

In the January 2013 HealthAffairs, Arthur L. Kellermann and Spencer S. Jones of the RAND Corporation look back  at the projections of a 2005 RAND study of healthcare IT. Why, in defiance of that study’s projections, are our medical computer systems not saving us $81 billion a year? They list reasons: slow adoption, lack of […]

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Cost Disease

This entry is part 20 of 44 in the series Words

The Cost Disease is both the name of a book, and the economic theory espoused by this book. The theory is relatively simple at its base. There are two segments to our modern economy, the progressive and the stagnant. The progressive sector makes rapid improvement in efficiency. Examples include manufacture, particularly of items such as […]

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Model T

This entry is part 23 of 44 in the series Words

An article in the New York Times points up some of the shortcomings of the push for meaningful use of electronic medical records (EMR): it’s vulnerable to fraud. The Department of Health and Human Services is shocked, just shocked, that perhaps some physicians and hospitals may have not been entirely accurate in self-reporting how well […]

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Menu

This entry is part 19 of 44 in the series Words

Faced with a long dinner menu, it’s hard to decide what to order. (Even with a medium-sized menu, my wife always says “You go ahead and order, I haven’t decided yet.” But that’s extreme.) It’s not just an urban legend. There are scientific studies that demonstrate it. The study When Choice is Demotivating by Sheena […]

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Contact

As of 2012, a new metric for ED throughput is physician contact time – with the caveat that assigning a physician name on a tracking system, or the time of the first orders, is not adequate to measure this. Surprised? Some docs put their name on the patient as soon as the patient arrives in […]

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