October 2009
18 posts
That popcorn bucket is huge.
This article from divine caroline demonstrates just how hard the world has made portion control. The damage:
Increased portion sizes give us more calories, encourage us to eat more, distort perceptions of appropriate food quantities, and along with sedentary lifestyles, have contributed to our national bulge.
via PSFK
The iPhone will save us all. Another example of a... →
1776 - 2009?
Last week I had the fleeting thought that we wouldn’t be mired in the mess we’re currently in if only this country’s forefathers had had the foresight to address our health care concerns around 1776. Well, turns out, they had the same issues. The debate rages on.
Hospital business will be fine.
Marketplace Headline: “Swine flu threatens hospital business”
Allow me to allay your concerns: “hospital business” is going to be fine.
P.S.: Moments like these are a big part of why hospitals exist. The in-between “elective surgeries, et. al” are what sustain them from crisis to crisis. We’ve lost sight of that because medicine and public health have...
Traditionalists vs. Contemporaries
Tim Leberecht at Matter/Anti-Matter points to an Economist article:
A survey by the Centre for Work-Life Policy, an American consultancy, found that between June 2007 and December 2008 the proportion of employees who professed loyalty to their employers slumped from 95% to 39%; the number voicing trust in them fell from 79% to 22%. A more recent survey by DDI, another American consultancy, found...
“Unfortunately, a chief executive only a few years from retirement is hardly...”
– Luke Johnson, chairman of the BBC’s Channel 4 and head of a private equity firm, in a delightful article about the business perils brought on by our networked world
Language matters
Love this language:
The Hospital Corporation of America’s East Florida Division is using tech to “lure” patients into their emergency rooms—and are supposedly seeing success.
Sense the sarcasm…lures are used for fish.
If health care taught Health Care 101, what would...
Ed Cotton at influx writes of a coffee shop (Intelligentsia Coffee) that has set-up a “lab” in NYC to teach people about coffee. He then asks a stop-you-in-your-tracks question:
If your brand was to educate people, what would it teach them?
Oh gosh, my mind is flowing with possibilities. An educated patient would be an informed patient. An informed patient would make informed...
Hospital blocks access to social media to scream...
Paul Levy posts a statement circulated at a Boston hospital last week (most definitely NOT his). It’s a typical we-weren’t-prepared response from a way-too-conservative institution.
Is availability of social media in an extremely private environment scary? Yes. But policy-ing your way out of the morass isn’t the answer. Is sharing private health information inappropriate? ...
How healthcare institutions talk to you.
Found my work life’s new mission statement in this masterpiece by Jay Parkinson: “Healthcare needs to be made cool, engaging, unique, transparent, and personalized.” The reality he writes of is tremendously frustrating to those of us who know the system can be better (and are working to make it so). His consistent pushing is appreciated.
I’ve been thinking a ton about the...
Are you sure that was a bogey?
My dad told me when I was growing up that business people judge character based upon how one plays the game of golf. Research isn’t needed to validate his claim but this Marketplace interview between Kai Ryssdal and Dan Ariely on cheating and golf notes the reality (emphasis added).
Dan Ariely: We do know how they did. First of all, it turns out that people in the pharmaceutical industry...
Smoking has its benefits?
With more hospitals banning smoking (a very obvious correct decision), Michael Skapinker writes at the Financial Times on the collaboration opportunities they’re eliminating:
Companies spend money on activities such as Outward Bound adventures and cookery classes, hoping to encourage bonding between different departments. Smokers already cross those boundaries. Look at any group...
I have seen the enemy and he is us; industry...
Via Dan Pink via the new book “See New Now:”
A study of the top fifty game-changing innovations over a hundred-year period showed that nearly 80 percent of those innovations were sparked by someone whose primary expertise was outside the field in which the innovation breakthrough took place.
Could it be termed “industry blindness?” Years of experience learning...
Frontlines, Part 1
Read this.
I completely agree with Dr. Jay’s sentiments.
Good luck with the surgery Jordan.
jayparkinsonmd:
jordansheartsucks:
Day one at the hospital is more or less complete. Time knows no bounds here, so I’m sure I’ll be woken up around 3 am to be asked how I’m sleeping, and then maybe be stabbed a few times for good measure.
Hospitals have a certain, unique way of making you feel...
Pay-What-You-Wish Health Care
Imagine for a minute, just a minute, the chaos that would ensue if health care embraced a pay-what-you-wish payment model (PWYW). The same model pioneered in (the formerly-antiquated) music industry by the band Radiohead. Other examples via Freakonomics: law firm, chiropractor, and taxi cab.
What would be most interesting is finding out patients’ perceived value of the services they...
Maybe because the concept is rather abstract?... →