How long until the next bomb? Why there’s no reason to think that nuclear deterrence works
Every day one sees politicians on TV assuring us that nuclear deterrence works because there no nuclear weapon has been exploded in anger since 1945. They clearly have no understanding of statistics.
With a few plausible assumptions, we can easily calculate that the time until the next bomb explodes could be as little as 20 years.
Be scared, very scared.
The first assumption is that bombs go off at random intervals. Since we have had only one so far (counting Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a single event), this can’t be verified. But given the large number of small influences that control when a bomb explodes (whether...
Source: DC's goodscience - October 24, 2015 Category: Science Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Politicians politics bomb deterrant exponential distribution Markov nuclear statistics Trident Source Type: blogs
How long until the next bomb? Why there ’ s no reason to think that nuclear deterrence works
Every day one sees politicians on TV assuring us that nuclear deterrence works because there no nuclear weapon has been exploded in anger since 1945. They clearly have no understanding of statistics.
With a few plausible assumptions, we can easily calculate that the time until the next bomb explodes could be as little as 20 years.
Be scared, very scared.
The first assumption is that bombs go off at random intervals. Since we have had only one so far (counting Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a single event), this can’t be verified. But given the large number of small influences that control when a bomb explodes (whether...
Source: DC's goodscience - October 24, 2015 Category: Science Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Politicians politics bomb deterrant exponential distribution Markov nuclear statistics Trident Source Type: blogs
How long until the next bomb? Why there ’ s no reason to think that nuclear deterrence works
Every day one sees politicians on TV assuring us that nuclear deterrence works because there no nuclear weapon has been exploded in anger since 1945. They clearly have no understanding of statistics.
With a few plausible assumptions, we can easily calculate that the time until the next bomb explodes could be as little as 20 years.
Be scared, very scared.
The first assumption is that bombs go off at random intervals. Since we have had only one so far (counting Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a single event), this can’t be verified. But given the large number of small influences that control when a bomb explodes (whether ...
Source: DC's goodscience - October 24, 2015 Category: Science Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Politicians politics bomb deterrant exponential distribution Markov nuclear statistics Trident Source Type: blogs
Increasing Transplant Organ Supply Through Uncontrolled Donation After Cardiac Death
This study would suggest that a publicly accepted approach to uDCD would be to require consent prior to organ preservation, even if this is not legally or ethically required.
Should uDCD Protocols Be Pursued In The US?
Uncontrolled donation after cardiac death protocols provide an opportunity to expand the organ donor pool, thereby decreasing waiting list time and improving outcomes for potential organ recipients. Given that the waiting list for organ donation has not significantly changed in the past several years, and thousands of people continue to die or have a poor quality of life while awaiting organs, efforts should...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 16, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Anji Wall and Sunil Geevarghese Tags: Featured Health Professionals Hospitals Organization and Delivery Population Health Bioethics cardiac death health care law next of kin organ donation organ transplants Source Type: blogs
NHS maximum waiting times and patient choice policies
House of Commons Library - This briefing sets out policy on maximum waiting time standards and patient choice in the English NHS.
Briefing
Commons Library publications (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - September 16, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Competition and choice Patient involvement, experience and feedback Source Type: blogs
Waiting time prioritisation: evidence from England
Centre for Health Economics, University of York (CHE) - A number of OECD countries have introduced waiting time prioritisation policies which give explicit priority to severely ill patients with high marginal disutility of waiting. There is however little empirical evidence on how patients are actually prioritised. This paper exploits a unique opportunity to investigate this issue using a large national dataset with accurate measures of severity on over 200,000 patients. It links data from a national patient-reported outcome measures survey to administrative data on all patients waiting for a publicly funded hip and ...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - September 11, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS measurement and performance Source Type: blogs
Multidimensional performance assessment using dominance criteria
Centre for Health Economics, University of York -Reaching judgements about hospital performance is difficult for two main reasons. First, there is no single measure of performance because hospitals have different objectives that they are expected to achieve. These objectives cover access, safety and affordability, meaning hospitals will be judged on such things as waiting times, the safety and quality of care and their costs. Second, people might value these objectives differently. This makes it difficult to construct an overall measure of performance that everybody would be happy with. This paper proposes a way to get aro...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - September 10, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS measurement and performance Source Type: blogs
New joints: private providers and rising demand in the English National Health Service
Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) - This paper investigates how changes in hospital choice sets affect levels of patient demand for elective hospital care. It exploits a set of reforms in England that opened up the market for publicly-funded patients to private hospitals. Impacts on demand are estimated using variation in distance to these private hospitals, within regions where supply constraints are fixed. It finds that the reforms increased demand for publicly-funded procedures. For public hospitals, volumes remained unchanged but waiting times fell. Taken together, the results provide new insights into how indiv...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - August 26, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Competition and choice Patient involvement, experience and feedback Source Type: blogs
Maybe health costs should be a quality measure
How do we measure a doctor? Hospital length of stay? Infection rate? Flu shot compliance? Waiting time? These reality surrogates do not tell us how a patient feels or the quality of life. They are complex to measure, require major data crunching and may not focus on an individual physician. This week, two patients reminded me of a basic screening tool for good care: How much is the bill?
15 years ago, I took care of Melissa for gallbladder cancer. She received surgery, radiation and has been in remission ever since. In fact, because she has no need of a grouchy oncologist, I have not seen her in years. Melissa works full ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - August 25, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: James C. Salwitz, MD Tags: Conditions Cancer Source Type: blogs
NHS Indicators: England, August 2015
House of Commons Library - This statistical summary for NHS England covers the following areas: accident and emergency attendance and performance; ambulance call volume and response times; waiting times for routine treatment; waiting times for cancer diagnosis and treatment; cancelled operations; delayed transfers of care; diagnostic waiting times and activity; waiting times for mental health treatment; workforce numbers for doctors, nurses and other staff; hospital activity, referrals and admissions; and bed availability and occupancy.
Briefing
Commons Library publications (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - August 21, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS finances and productivity NHS measurement and performance Source Type: blogs
Crunch time: annual report on hospital waiting times
This report is the fifth in a series of annual reviews of hospital waiting times for elective surgical procedures in England. It finds that NHS patients are waiting longer than ever for surgical procedures such as hip replacements and cataracts. The report looks at seven key surgical procedures and finds that the mean average waiting time for all is 13 weeks.
Report
Press release (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - July 27, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS measurement and performance Patient safety Source Type: blogs
Like it or not, the Surgeon Scorecard is the only game in town
If you want to know who the best surgeon in the hospital is, ask the surgical nursing staff. If you want to know who does the best job opening up coronary arteries using catheters, balloons, and stents, ask the cardiac catheterization lab nurses and technicians.
Unfortunately, these approaches to comparing physicians’ skills are only available to hospital personnel. They are the only people who are in a position to compare the technical performance of many different doctors. This is not information the average patient can easily obtain.
The average patient has to rely on intangibles when trying to select a doctor. Fuzz...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 25, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: David Mann, MD Tags: Physician Surgery Source Type: blogs
Accident and emergency statistics
House of Commons Library - This briefing provides summaries and visualisations of a wide range of NHS A&E trends, including: levels of attendance over time; attendance by age, and various measures of waiting times.
Briefing
House of Commons Library publications (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - July 20, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS measurement and performance Source Type: blogs
Six Problems With The ACA That Aren’t Going Away
As Congress and the Obama Administration await the Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell, there is heightened interest in what happens after the decision. One common assumption is that if the court rules in favor of the administration, there will be no need to make any major changes in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This assumption is wrong.
There is an urgent need to make major changes in the law regardless of how the Supreme Court rules. These are changes that will require bi-partisan cooperation — something that is rare in health policy.
The changes are needed because there are at least six major problems ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 25, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: John Goodman Tags: Costs and Spending Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Medicare employer coverage GDP global budgets individual mandate Medicare Advantage premium subsidies Source Type: blogs
Socioeconomic inequality of access to healthcare: does patients’ choice explain the gradient? Evidence from the English NHS
Centre for Health Economics -Equity of access is a key policy objective in publicly-funded healthcare systems. Using data on patients undergoing non-emergency heart revascularization procedures in the English NHS, this research paper finds evidence of significant differences in waiting times within public hospitals between patients with different socioeconomic status (up to 35% difference between the most and least deprived population quintiles).
Research paper
Centre for Health Economics - publications (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - June 4, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Equality and diversity NHS measurement and performance Patient involvement, experience and feedback Source Type: blogs
