Goodness!
The essential, first-order or pure concept of " public goods " is whatever we benefit from that is " non-excludable " and " non-rivalrous. " That means you can use it without paying for it, and if you use it, it ' s still there for others. An example, at least for the time being, is the oxygen in the air. Back in the good old paleolithic, there was a lot more of that. Basically, the land and the water and the plants and animals were there for the taking, and there was usually plenty so rivalry was uncommon. Of course, this only worked within your own tribe -- sometimes people of different tribes tried exclusion and rivalry...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 14, 2024 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

UnityAI Secures $4 Million in Seed Funding to Revolutionize Hospital Flow
Company will Apply AI Technologies Including Reinforcement Learning and LLMs to Optimize how Patients Flow through Hospitals UnityAI, a healthcare technology startup founded by three seasoned engineers and data scientists with backgrounds at HCA Healthcare, a leading hospital and healthcare company in the United States, announced the successful closure of its seed funding round, securing $4 million in total capital to date. The founders, Dr. Edmund Jackson, Cody Hall, and Dr. Jason Parker, bring a wealth of expertise in the healthcare sector, where they identified a critical need for innovation in hospital operations. Usi...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 14, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Cody Hall Company Ventures Dr. Edmund Jackson Dr. Jason Parker Geoff Clark HCA Healthcare Health IT Funding Health IT Fundings Health IT Investment Max Ventures Nashville Capital Network Ryan Darne Source Type: blogs

Monopoly Money
First, let me acknowledge Chuck ' s comment on the previous Economics 101 post. I ' m going to get to public goods, it ' s extremely important, but I figured I ' d push it down the list because it ' s easier to deal with the rest of the assumptions first. (To put it formally, the ones having to do with public goods are that all good are non-exclusive and non-rivalrous, and also that there are no positive externalities. I will explain anon.)Today, I ' m going to deal with the Many sellers, Many buyers assumption. It ' s obviously impossible even for Milton Friedman to bamboozle people into thinking that this is somehow a na...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 8, 2024 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Assume a Can Opener
Conclusion . . .  The endeavor from here on is to inflate this into a claim about the real world of many people, many corporations, and innumerable products.A first order conclusion is that the way to the best possible world is to let everybody do whatever trading they want, of anything, with anybody.The posited “free market” economy, if left to its own devices, will turn out maximum prosperity, efficiency and happiness for all.Government just needs to leave it alone – an idea called laissez faire – French for “let do” – a phrase popularized in the 19th Century. This, however, depends on certai...
Source: Stayin' Alive - February 27, 2024 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Occupational therapy education: How to navigate in a Perfect Storm
Please click on and read all of the links - they include critical information that is required for this analysis.  A little over four years ago I stated thatthere are too many occupational therapy educational programs in New York State.  At the NYSOTA conference legislative information session in 2023 I stood up and suggested that we should all stop taking jobs at these institutions that were seeking to develop new programs.  I thought that if we did not take those jobs that the problem would be solved. That was neither realistic or correct, even if the intention was good.Well karma tends to strike...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - February 8, 2024 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT Education Source Type: blogs

Who to Blame for Health Costs: The Poisoned Chalice of “ Moral Hazard ”
By JEFF GOLDSMITH How the Search for Perfect Markets has Damaged Health Policy Sometimes ideas in healthcare are so powerful that they haunt us for generations even though their link to the real world we all live in is tenuous. The idea of “moral hazard” is one of these ideas.   In 1963, future Nobel Laureate economist Kenneth Arrow wrote an influential essay about the applicability of market principles to medicine entitled “Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care”.     One problem Arrow mentioned in this essay was “moral hazard”- the enhancement of demand for something people us...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 8, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Health Care Costs Jeff Goldsmith Kenneth Arrow Medicare Moral Hazard Source Type: blogs

The Money ’ s in the Wrong Place. How to Fund Primary Care
By MATTHEW HOLT I was invited on the Health Tech Talk Show by Kat McDavitt and Lisa Bari and I kinda ranted (go to 37.16 here) about why we don’t have primary care, and where we should find the money to fix it. I finally got around to writing it up. It’s a rant but a rant with a point! We’re spending way too much money on stuff that is the wrong thing. 30 years ago, I was taught that we were going to have universal health care reform. And then we were going to have capitated at-risk entities. then below that, you have all these tech enabled services, which are going to make all this stuff work an...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 5, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Matthew Holt ACA ACO CVS FQHCs Health Systems hedge funds Hospitals Medisync primary care Walgreens Walmart Source Type: blogs

The Science of Happiness: Proven Habits for a Fulfilling Life
The majority of Americans are not experiencing much happiness these days. According to a poll, only 19% of the surveyed individuals described themselves as "very happy." Other comparable studies also demonstrated low happiness ratings. While not entirely surprising given the turbulent economy and other concerns, these insights reveal that many people are not reaping the benefits of daily fulfillment. Happiness has long been associated with numerous personal and familial benefits. When we are happy, we are less likely to be burdened by the devastating effects of stress, such as an increased risk of developing cardiovascu...
Source: PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement - January 31, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Mike Szczesny Tags: depression featured happiness philosophy self improvement Source Type: blogs

Drug prices continued: Innovation?
Pharmaceutical manufacturers claim that they need patent protection and marketing exclusivity so they can charge high prices to recoup the costs of drug development and clinical trials. There are a few things wrong with this argument, but they add up to the general fact that the system does not serve the public interest. Drug companies care about one thing only, that is profit. And the pursuit of profit does not serve the interests of public health or social welfare.One obvious mismatch between the goal of public health and the goal of profit is that a relatively cheap drug that you can take once or for a week or so, that ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 23, 2024 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

The Public Stakes of Consumer Law: The Environment, the Economy, Health, Disinformation, and Beyond
Rory Van Loo (Boston University), The Public Stakes of Consumer Law: The Environment, the Economy, Health, Disinformation, and Beyond, 107 Minn. L. Rev. (2023): Consumer law has a conflicted and narrow identity. It is most immediately a form of business... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - January 22, 2024 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs

Healthcare Workforce – 2024 Health IT Predictions
As we kick off 2024, we wanted to start the new year with a series of 2024 Health IT predictions.  We asked the Healthcare IT Today community to submit their predictions and we received a wide ranging set of responses that we grouped into a number of themes.  In fact, we got so many that we had to narrow them down to just the best and most interesting.  Check out our community’s predictions below and be sure to add your own thoughts and/or places you disagree with these predictions in the comments and on social media. All of this year’s 2024 health IT predictions (updated as they’re shared): John and ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - January 10, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: John Lynn Tags: Administration Ambulatory Analytics/Big Data C-Suite Leadership Clinical Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System LTPAC Revenue Cycle Management 2024 Health IT Predictions Amy Amrick Ashish Shah Aspirion Benjami Source Type: blogs

Value Based Care – 2024 Health IT Predictions
As we kick off 2024, we wanted to start the new year with a series of 2024 Health IT predictions.  We asked the Healthcare IT Today community to submit their predictions and we received a wide ranging set of responses that we grouped into a number of themes.  In fact, we got so many that we had to narrow them down to just the best and most interesting.  Check out our community’s predictions below and be sure to add your own thoughts and/or places you disagree with these predictions in the comments and on social media. All of this year’s 2024 health IT predictions (updated as they’re shared): John and ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - January 5, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: John Lynn Tags: Administration Ambulatory C-Suite Leadership Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System Regulations Revenue Cycle Management 2024 Health IT Predictions 9amHealth Andreessen Horowitz Anthony Hudson Anton Kittleberger Source Type: blogs

Regarding the previous post on oligarchy . . .
I published a comment on it but I want to address it here. Obviously manufacturers moved their operations overseas in search of cheap labor and lax or non-existent environmental and safety regulations so they could make their products more cheaply, and yes, that made many products cheaper for consumers. WalMart is particularly known for squeezing manufacturers to lower prices and hence encouraging this dynamic. Americans as consumers benefited, Americans as workers lost out. As it turns out, the net result was losses for people with less education, as those manufacturing jobs -- often unionized -- that enabled blue collar ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 1, 2024 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Biorithm Secures $3.5 Million in Series A Funding to Advance Maternal Care Worldwide
New Funds to Fortify US Market Entry and Growth Strategy, as well as Advance Breakthrough Research Biorithm, a global women’s health medtech, has closed $3.5 million in Series A funding, co-led by Adaptive Capital Partners and SEEDS Capital. With a homegrown spirit and a global vision, Biorithm is dedicated to developing cutting-edge solutions for personalized connected maternity care. The funding will fuel Biorithm’s expansion in Southeast Asia and the United States. It also will assist the company in advancing Femom, a comprehensive obstetric remote monitoring solution, and completing clinical studies to support ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 27, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Adaptive Capital Partners Amrish Nair Biorithm Health IT Funding Health IT Fundings Health IT Investment Julian Robinson SEEDS Capital Shi Ying Tan Kaixin Source Type: blogs

Econoclasm Chapter Two, continued: Medical externalities
 I ' ve had a request to say more about inflation. That ' s a bit off topic for the time being, but I ' ll get to it.Medicine is also unlike most other goods and services in the extent to which it has important positive externalities – that is, benefits for people outside of the transaction, who are not the providers or consumers. (Of course it has negative externalities as well, including carbon emissions and notably, a huge quantity of plastic waste.) A straightforward positive externality is infectious disease control. Prev enting or curing infectious diseases prevents them from being transmitted to others. This ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - December 26, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs