“The Greatest Scientist of All Time” says Scientific American. Who is it?
BY MIKE MAGEE
When it comes to our earthly survival as a human species, words are often under-powered and off-the-mark. Clearer concepts, definitions and terms are required for clarity. Here are five terms that are useful and worth remembering:
Planetary Boundaries
Earth Systems
Human Perturbations
Planetary Scale Destabilization
Holocene Epoch vs. Anthropogenic Epoch
These terms all tie back to a single source – a child of World War II, only seven when his home in Amsterdam was overrun by Nazis. His father was a waiter, his mother a cook in a local hospital. He’d later recall with a sh...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 11, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Non-Health Chemistry Mike Magee Ozone Paul Crutzen Scientific American Source Type: blogs
Beyond the Scale: How organizations should evaluate the success of obesity management solutions
Conclusion
Organizations have much to consider when evaluating obesity solutions for their population. It’s easy to be swayed by simple metrics that seem indisputable. But, in the end, outcomes like 5% weight loss and reductions in HbA1c for the majority of an eligible population are what counts. Sustainable outcomes rely on real behavior change, a careful step-therapy approach to medication, and personalized care when it comes to social determinants of health.
Caitlyn Edwards, PhD, RDN, is a Senior Clinical Research Specialist at Vida Health (Source: The Health Care Blog)
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 8, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Medical Practice Caitlyn Edwards GLP-1 Obesity SDoH vida health Source Type: blogs
Monetizing Creative Passions Through Turning Hobbies into Side Hustles
“Find a way to make money doing what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life." This timeless adage holds more truth than ever. While many of us navigate traditional careers to make ends meet, the era of the side hustle has opened up new avenues for turning our hobbies into lucrative income sources. Let's delve into the art of transforming your passions into profitable side hustles that pad your wallet and feed your soul.
Choosing Lucrative Hobbies
Not all side hustles are created equal in terms of profit potential. Here are three examples of hobbies you can leverage to create a steady stream of income:
...
Source: PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement - September 7, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Mike Szczesny Tags: career featured happiness internet culture productivity tips success hobbies side hustle Source Type: blogs
All the Lonely People: Primary Care isn ’t a Team Sport Anymore, We’re Only Interacting with Our Computers
BY HANS DUVEFELT
In spite of all the talk these days about health care teams and in spite of more and more physicians working for bigger and bigger healthcare organizations, we are becoming more and more isolated from our colleagues and our support staffs.
Computer work, which is taking more and more time as EMRs get more and more complex, is a lonely activity. We are not just encouraged but pretty much forced to communicate with our nurses and medical assistants through computer messaging. This may provide more evidence of who said or did what at what point in time, but it is both inefficient and dehumanizing.
Wh...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 7, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Medical Practice EMR Hans Duvefelt primary care Professional Isolation Social Isolation Source Type: blogs
Smells like AI Spirit
By KIM BELLARD
There are so many exciting developments in artificial intelligence (AI) these days that one almost becomes numb to them. Then along comes something that makes me think, hmm, I didn’t see that coming.
For example, AI can now smell.
Strictly speaking, that’s not quite true, at least not in the way humans and other creatures smell. There’s no olfactory organ, like our nose or a snake’s tongue. What AI has been trained to do is to look at a molecular structure and predict what it would smell like.
If you’re wondering (as I certainly did when I heard AI could smell), AI has also starte...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 6, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Tech AI Diagnosis diagnosis automation Kim Bellard Smell Source Type: blogs
Has Sensemaking Collapsed When It Comes To U.S. Healthcare?
By MIKE MAGEE
This past week my wife and I were at a family event to celebrate my brother-in-law’s 70th birthday. Our extended family has more than a few doctors. A physician nephew who had read CODE BLUE and had a strong interest in health policy asked if I felt I (and others) were too hard on doctors. My response was yes, but that it was intentional and came with the territory. Combining scientific, sometimes life and death expertise, with high-touch compassion, understanding and partnership has always been a “big ask” but that was what we and others had signed up for as “health professionals.”
But can a ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 5, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Deming Don Berwick ESCAPE FIRE Karl E. Weick Mike Magee Physicians Sensemaking Source Type: blogs
THCB Gang Episode 134, Thursday August 31
Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) on #THCBGang on Thursday August 31 at 1pm PST 4pm EST are the small but mighty pairing of Kim Bellard (@kimbbellard); and patient safety expert and all around wit Michael Millenson (@mlmillenson).
You can see the video below & if you’d rather listen than watch, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels. (Source: The Health Care Blog)
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 31, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Abdul Ghafar Tags: THCB Gang Kim Bellard matthew hot Michael Millenson Source Type: blogs
The One Question FOX News Moderators Should Ask Tonight
This article was published a week after the Republican Party Primary debate
BY MIKE MAGEE
This evening, the Republican Party will sponsor their first Primary Debate. It will be historic in featuring the absence of their lead contender for the 2024 Presidential campaign, a candidate who appears committed to the destruction of their own political party
Events over the past year clearly have confirmed that we are a “work in progress” even as we stubbornly affirm our good intentions to create a society committed to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
With the Dobbs’ decision, our Supreme C...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 30, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Non-Health Dobbs Mike Magee Republican Primary Source Type: blogs
Let ’ s Start Over
BY KIM BELLARD
When I first read the reports about some Silicon Valley billionaires wanting to start a new city, I figured, oh, it’s just a bunch of rich white guys wanting to take their toys and go to a new, better home. After all, they’ve seen what’s been happening to downtown San Francisco (or Portland, or Chicago – pick your preferred city).
Cities these days may be an what one expert calls an “urban doom loop” – struggling to recover after having been hollowed out by the pandemic. These so-called elites probably figured it’s easier to build something new rather than to try to fix what already ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 29, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: The Business of Health Care Flanner Associates Kim Bellard Silicon Valley Urban Doom Loop Zoning Source Type: blogs
20th Birthday Classic: “Healthcare” vs. “Health Care”: The Definitive Word(s)
This is the last of the classics that THCB will run to celebrate our 20th birthday. And we are finally tackling the most important of questions. Is what we call this thing one word or two? Back in 2012 Michael Millenson had the definitive answer–Matthew Holt
By MICHAEL L. MILLENSON
A recent contributor to this blog wondered about the correctness of “health care” versus “healthcare.” I’d like to answer that question by channeling my inner William Safire (the late, great New York Times language maven). If you’ll stick with me, I’ll also disclose why the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Serv...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 25, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy health care Healthcare Michael Millenson Source Type: blogs
THCB 20th Birthday Classic: Value-based care – no progress since 1997?
As the 20th Birthday rolls on I thought I’d bring out a more recent piece first published in October 2020, albeit one that relies heavily on 25 year old data to make a point. This is some evidence to back up Jeff Goldsmith’s comment on the original that for all the talk “ ‘Value based” payment is a religious movement, not a business trend’ ” By the way, Humana updated these numbers last year and there’s been basically no change — Matthew Holt
By MATTHEW HOLT
Humana is out with a report saying that its Medicare Advantage members who are covered by value-based care (VBC) ar...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 24, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: The Business of Health Care Capitation Humana Medicare Advantage VBC Source Type: blogs
The Next Pandemic May Be an AI one
By KIM BELLARD
Since the early days of the pandemic, conspiracy theorists have charged that COVID was a manufactured bioweapon, either deliberately leaked or the result of an inadvertent lab leak. There’s been no evidence to support these speculations, but, alas, that is not to say that such bioweapons aren’t truly an existential threat. And artificial intelligence (AI) may make the threat even worse.
Last week the Department of Defense issued its first ever Biodefense Posture Review. It “recognizes that expanding biological threats, enabled by advances in life sciences and biotechnology, are among the ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 23, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy AI Bioterrorism ChatGPT COVID Department of Defense Kim Bellard Source Type: blogs
Torben Nielsen, CEO, Uptiv Health
Early this month I caught up with Torben Nielsen who is now CEO of Uptiv Health. Another one from the Redesign Health factory, Uptiv Health came out of stealth recently with the goal of improving the experience and reducing the cost of those patients who have to have regular infusion treatments. Uptiv Health just raised $7.5m and is opening its first location in Detroit at the end of August 2023, with a goal of becoming the health home of those chronic disease patients. Why do we need a new offering in infusion care? Torben will tell you–Matthew Holt (Source: The Health Care Blog)
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 22, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: The Business of Health Care Infusion care Redesign Health Torben Nielsen Uptiv Health Source Type: blogs
Lash of St. Francis
BY MIKE MAGEE
On September 25, 1939, Southern California woke with fear of The Lash of St. Francis or El Cordonazo on the horizon. The term refers to northwestern tracking, cyclone-laden storms that can hit the western shores of Mexico and California most commonly around the Feast of Saint Francis, on October 4th. This one made landfall at San Pedro, California.
The calamity that day in Southern California was a rare event, the only one of its kind in the 20th century. The last one to hit, prior to this was in San Diego on October 2,1858. The Earth’s rotation normally assures that such cyclones in this region move...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 21, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Non-Health Global Warming Mike Magee St. Francis Summer Heat Wave Source Type: blogs
THCB 20th Birthday classics: A Brief History of Price Controls by Annoyed Republican Administrations
By UWE REINHARDT
One of the greatest pleasures of running THCB has been to get to know and host the writings of some of my health policy heroes. This week I have already published work from Jeff Goldsmith, and Ian Morrison & Michael Millenson among others will be featured next week (as the party won’t quite stop). Perhaps one of the most amazing things was that the doyen of health economists, Uwe Reinhardt, offered to write some original pieces for THCB…prodded by former editor John Irvine. This is one of my favorites, riffing on a talk I heard him give in (I think) 1993 about how HCFA was like the Kreml...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 18, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Price controls Uwe Reinhardt Source Type: blogs
