Healthcare: Not just another business

Health | Ano Lobb | Friday 20th November 2009

A reader comment on a posting about electronic medical records (EMR) suggests that medicine needs to follow other industries into the digital age. This is likely inevitable: Medical record keeping is bound to become more digitized over time. The primary reasons are monetary: It facilitates the generation of bills to send to patients and payers, the jury is still out on whether it increases quali
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Leading News and Opinion

	Organic Food Market of Belgium Sustainable Food \| Justmeans Staff \| Wednesday 28th October 2009 When it comes to organic food, the market of Belgium is growing at a fast pace. It is worth 300 million euros with over 2,800 product references. In the last few years, there has been a tremendous increase in the sale of organic produce in the country. Even the global crisis last year did not affect its growth as the sales improved 25%. Not only consumers are choosing sustainable food items over the conventional items but food joints are also offering locally grown seasonal food items to the customers. If you are looking for organic produce in Belgium, look for products with the Belgian label Biogarantie. This is private label that is used on products only when it has been tested as sustainable and received an additional certificate. However, this is not a compulsory label as some products just mention 'biologique' or 'biologisch' along with the name or code of the inspection body. It was during the 1960s that the first switch from conventional to organic farming took place in Belgium. However, based on studies it has been found that a large number of farmers started using organic farming methods in the country only in the last ten years. Walloon Region is one of the places in Belgium where farmers are certified organically as conventional farming in this region is very extensive. Read More

	Solid Waste Management and Climate Change Climate Change \| Justmeans Staff \| Wednesday 28th October 2009 Did you know that the solid waste present in our garbage bins can also add up to the emission of greenhouse gases? The co-relation between solid waste management and climate change has raised serious concerns across the world. Sites where solid waste is disposed, produces methane, one of the most dangerous greenhouses gases. These disposal sites contribute to the yearly greenhouse gas emission by approximately 3-4%. Climate change experts have predicted that in the coming years, there are chances of the emission increasing at a more alarming rate. Management of solid waste is becoming a serious environmental challenge since there is lack of awareness among people. Heaped garbage bins overflowing with solid waste is becoming a very common sight in communities all over the world. The stench coming from these bins maybe a problem for all of us but have we ever thought how we also play an important role in the creation of it? In the US, the government has embarked various voluntary measures to bring down the level of greenhouse gas emission; however, a lot still needs to be done in order to manage municipal solid waste. Experts are of view that communities should seek support to capture the emission of harmful gases such as methane and CO2 which is the result of solid waste decomposition. Read More

	How safe is H1N1 Vaccination for Infants? Health \| Justmeans Staff \| Wednesday 28th October 2009 Health studies have proved that H1N1 vaccination is not very safe for toddlers and infants. Even though doctors are recommending children to get the swine flu vaccination, age and food allergies are some of the basic factors due to which some babies should not take the vaccine. Thimerosal is a preservative used in swine flu vaccines. This vaccine contains mercury that can be extremely harmful for small kids. Recently, the federal government in Canada ordered 50.4 million vaccine dosages which contain adjuvant (substance used for giving the effect of vaccine the much required boost). Out of this dosage, approximately 1.2 million doses are for pregnant women and it doesn't include any adjuvant. Since there are no evidences as such on how toddlers would react to this substance, the government is not planning to use adjuvant-free H1N1 vaccine for small babies. Pregnant women and babies are being considered the two most important groups that can get affected due to this virus. However, precautions are being taken to make sure that young children should be given adjuvanted vaccine only when required. There is no doubt that H1N1 virus can cause serious health hazards on children under the age of five but the proposed vaccination can not be used on them for various reasons. If babies under 6 months are directly vaccinated with H1N1 vaccine, there are chances of sever health complications and even death in some cases. Therefore, as a precautionary measure health experts have recommended the required dosage for caregivers who take care of babies (6 months and below). This will provide protection to them from any possible infection. Infants can also be protected from the H1N1 virus if they are kept away from infected people and if pregnant women receive the vaccine before delivering the child, chances of the new born contracting swine flue after birth will decrease. Read More

	Creating a Spectacular Resume Responsible Careers \| Cynthia Stringer \| Wednesday 28th October 2009 A resume is meant to highlight your most effective and marketable skills and focus you towards your ultimate goal. It positions you in front of others and allows you to summarize your ability to produce results and be an asset to employers. Let's focus on the use of a resume. One main point is that it documents and clarifies what you have to offer and how your skills can be put to good use in the workplace. By consolidating your past and clustering them into segments you see very clearly what you have to offer and what you may need to learn or add in later. Use your resume as a way to summarize and gather your confidence in yourself and accomplishments for past good results. It's important that the statements reflect not just what you did but what the benefit was for the employer or client. Your resume is best utilized by being accomplishment focused not TASK driven. The best way to highlight your strengths is to speak in terms that relate to and communicate what they are looking for in an employer. Identify a specialized format that places your unique selling focus in the foreground. It's important to guide your reader to the result you want and there are many styles and looks that allow you to do that. The best format is the one that allows the reader to experience your job history and specific results that you generated. Take the time to focus in on the top five to six specific examples that relate to and demonstrate your skills. Keep it simple, direct, and specific. Read More

	Culture Clash Sustainable Development \| Kendra Pierre-Louis \| Tuesday 27th October 2009 Last week I attended an Anti-Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining event, co-sponsored by Earth Justice and the coal ash is often improperly stored; just last year a billion gallons of toxic sludge spilled across 300 acres of East Tennessee. And yet, despite all of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining's deleterious effects there are residents of the region who are reluctant to end the practice. I didn't understand why until I attended this event which featured a screening of the documentary film, Coal Country , which explains the effect of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, followed by a brief concert by musicians from the Appalachia region. As I sat in the red velvet seats of New York's Town Hall Theater, I was pulled from the hustle and bustle of Broadway to the rolling hills of Appalachia. Sitting there, it struck me that although Sustainable Development is often framed as an ecological and an economic issue, at its core it's a cultural issue. "Well, I was born a coal miner's daughter\ In a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler\We were poor but we had love\That's the one thing my Daddy made sure of\ He shoveled coal to make a poor man's dollar" begin the lyrics to Appalachian native Loretta Lynn's famous song Coal Miner's daughter. This song is one of thousands, if not tens of thousands of songs from Appalachia that highlight the complicated relationship that Appalachians have had, throughout their history, with the coal mines. The mines give them enough to survive, but often little more, and are often the source of much loss and grief. However uneasy that relationship is, when carpet bagging environmentalists enter this region to say that coal is bad, they are in effect saying that the foundation upon which Appalachians have created their identity is bad, which in turn means Appalachians are bad too. Read More

	The competition conundrum: Can better care cost less? Health \| Ano Lobb \| Monday 26th October 2009 Kevin Long introduces the argument that more competition might actually increase healthcare costs in the US. The logic: Competition opens the field to more players, but having fewer players endows each with larger market share, and therefore greater leverage to negotiate lower prices. This line of reasoning is extended to discourage the entry of not-for-profit healthcare. The central problem with competition in healthcare is that the wrong metrics are currently used to assess winners. Competing on price guarantees that costs will not decline, and in many cases will actually increase. How? Cost is driven by two variables: price and volume. Evidence has shown, and good business practice dictates, that when you decrease the amount that you pay for a service, providers will compensate by increasing volume. Currently in the US, contractual negotiations between insurers and providers tend to focus on the price of services, not the volume. Quality is an afterthought. Volume is left at the discretion of doctors and hospitals, which is bad for costs and for health outcomes. The likelihood that you will receive discretionary services such as non-emergency hospitalization has nothing to do with your underlying health, but on the availability of hospital beds, or doctors available to perform procedures. Once hospitals build more beds, they must keep them filled to get paid, and over 30 years of research by the Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare, and others, shows that is exactly what they do. Have a new operating room and a top notch surgeon? The same business logic applies: You have to feed the surgeon patients to maintain revenue stream. The irony is that regions of the US with the highest costs tend to have the worst outcomes, even after you control for the health of patients. Read More

	Calling for reform Health \| Sam Wertheimer \| Saturday 24th October 2009 Volunteers across the nation sent a strong message in support of American health care reform this week. Motivated by distaste for a broken system, thousands of friends, neighbors, and strangers gathered in living rooms and community centers to call other voters and encourage them to back reform. The callers, collected through President Obama's Organizing for America (OFA) - the updated version of his community-based campaign organization, Obama for America - aimed to place 100,000 calls by the end of the day on Wednesday 10/21. They reached that number by 2:30pm. By midnight volunteers not only phoned over 300,000 voters, they also reached a wider audience because their efforts grabbed the attention of CBS News, the Huffington Post, and other news outlets. On Thursday night, I joined this good work. Below is my not-so-live blog of the event. 7:11pm - The event started at 7 but I'm stuck in parking lot-style traffic on the 405. I'm still learning how to navigate the freeway system in L.A., but I'm pretty sure that rush hour lasts until 10pm every night. 7:30 - Finally arrive and meet my host. Four other volunteers sit in her living room. They discuss strategy and peruse OFA-provided briefing materials. Only two have ever called other voters in support of a political issue. Read More

	Demonstrating your Values creates Good Work! Responsible Careers \| Cynthia Stringer \| Friday 23rd October 2009 Your values are the bedrock and foundation of your professional contribution and work in the world. Most people either don't know what their core values are or they are unable to demonstrate and perform them in the workplace. In this article I will explore with you some ways to identify your values, name some of the common obstacles to sharing your values and this and provide specific advise and suggestions for moving beyond that. The first step to living from and integrating your values into the workplace is becoming intimately familiar with what they are. One way I find to do this easily is to identify when you feel your most present, energized and productive. When you are in this state some people call the Zone or in your sweet spot you naturally produce results and are expanding. In this arena of alignment with your values and your work you naturally are successful and a contribution to yourself and your employer. In contrast a different approach to uncovering your values is ask yourself what bothers you most about the world, about your workplace, and about career life. You can look at the conversations you are invested in, the books you read, the blogs you write and respond to, the places you spend your time and money and the people you spend time with. All of this will point you to identify what your top 5-8 values are. A very powerful question to ask is, "What decisions did you make in your life that were your best ones and what values were being honored?" Read More

	Is Your House Haunted By Phantom Electricity? Ethical Consumption \| Caitlin Chock \| Friday 23rd October 2009 It is the time of the year when the spooks and goblins are busily toiling away and creating mischief at night, but there may be a phantom lurking in your own home without you even knowing it. Phantom energy that is! Phantom energy loss is the amount of electricity being used even when the lights, appliances, and other devices may be turned off, but are still plugged into an outlet. This type of consumer consumption may seem like a negligible amount, as you ask yourself, "how much energy can really be used by simply having my TV, DVD, and cellphone charger plugged in when they aren't in use?" Well, for an average home it may work out to only be about 5% of their total usage, but apply that on a national level and it comes out to roughly 65 billion kilowatt-hours of annual electrical use. Okay, okay, so you are probably thinking, "yea, this is basically wasted energy, but do you really expect me to plug in and unplug my TV every time I turn it on or off?" Well, in an ideal world yes, but let's be realistic, for many households that's a tall order, and for safety reasons we wouldn't want young kids to be messing around with electrical plugs and outlets. But that's not an excuse, there are still ways to cut down on that phantom Read More

	Keeping the Bees: Sustainable Pollinators for Sustainable Food Sustainable Food \| Tricia Edgar \| Friday 23rd October 2009 When I ask the children who visit our nature center what bees do, they generally reply in chorus, "They make honey!" While some bees make honey, all bees are a critical part of our sustainable global food supply: they are a key pollinator species. As they move from flower to flower sipping nectar, they pick up pollen and fertilize plants, enabling crops to create fruit and seeds. In this way, bees are of foundational importance to the sustainability of our food crops. Unfortunately, their numbers are dropping. For years our food crops have relied on the free services of nature's pollinators. Now, as we face the decline of our pollinators, we're asking what's gone wrong. Humans have created a world that is distinctly unfriendly to bees. Large agricultural systems are often monocultures. This means that a single crop is grown in one vast area, an area especially vast if you're a bee. The crop all blooms at approximately the same time and then the nectar is gone: feast or famine for the bees. Aerial applications of insecticides or the spraying of pesticides when crops are blooming also make life harder for these pollinators. To accommodate, farmers have come to rely on honeybees for crop pollination, and beekeepers often move the hives to areas that require intensive pollination. Ironically, this essential bee species is rather new to both Europe and North America. It migrated into Europe centuries ago and was introduced to North America in the 1600s. Today, honeybee colonies are collapsing as worker bees disappear from the colonies, leading to their collapse. Read More

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	Organic Food Market of Belgium Sustainable Food \| Justmeans Staff \| Wednesday 28th October 2009 When it comes to organic food, the market of Belgium is growing at a fast pace. It is worth 300 million euros with over 2,800 product references. In the last few years, there has been a tremendous increase in the sale of organic produce in the country. Even the global crisis last year did not affect its growth as the sales improved 25%. Not only consumers are choosing sustainable food items over the conventional items but food joints are also offering locally grown seasonal food items to the customers. If you are looking for organic produce in Belgium, look for products with the Belgian label Biogarantie. This is private label that is used on products only when it has been tested as sustainable and received an additional certificate. However, this is not a compulsory label as some products just mention 'biologique' or 'biologisch' along with the name or code of the inspection body. It was during the 1960s that the first switch from conventional to organic farming took place in Belgium. However, based on studies it has been found that a large number of farmers started using organic farming methods in the country only in the last ten years. Walloon Region is one of the places in Belgium where farmers are certified organically as conventional farming in this region is very extensive. Read More

	Solid Waste Management and Climate Change Climate Change \| Justmeans Staff \| Wednesday 28th October 2009 Did you know that the solid waste present in our garbage bins can also add up to the emission of greenhouse gases? The co-relation between solid waste management and climate change has raised serious concerns across the world. Sites where solid waste is disposed, produces methane, one of the most dangerous greenhouses gases. These disposal sites contribute to the yearly greenhouse gas emission by approximately 3-4%. Climate change experts have predicted that in the coming years, there are chances of the emission increasing at a more alarming rate. Management of solid waste is becoming a serious environmental challenge since there is lack of awareness among people. Heaped garbage bins overflowing with solid waste is becoming a very common sight in communities all over the world. The stench coming from these bins maybe a problem for all of us but have we ever thought how we also play an important role in the creation of it? In the US, the government has embarked various voluntary measures to bring down the level of greenhouse gas emission; however, a lot still needs to be done in order to manage municipal solid waste. Experts are of view that communities should seek support to capture the emission of harmful gases such as methane and CO2 which is the result of solid waste decomposition. Read More

	How safe is H1N1 Vaccination for Infants? Health \| Justmeans Staff \| Wednesday 28th October 2009 Health studies have proved that H1N1 vaccination is not very safe for toddlers and infants. Even though doctors are recommending children to get the swine flu vaccination, age and food allergies are some of the basic factors due to which some babies should not take the vaccine. Thimerosal is a preservative used in swine flu vaccines. This vaccine contains mercury that can be extremely harmful for small kids. Recently, the federal government in Canada ordered 50.4 million vaccine dosages which contain adjuvant (substance used for giving the effect of vaccine the much required boost). Out of this dosage, approximately 1.2 million doses are for pregnant women and it doesn't include any adjuvant. Since there are no evidences as such on how toddlers would react to this substance, the government is not planning to use adjuvant-free H1N1 vaccine for small babies. Pregnant women and babies are being considered the two most important groups that can get affected due to this virus. However, precautions are being taken to make sure that young children should be given adjuvanted vaccine only when required. There is no doubt that H1N1 virus can cause serious health hazards on children under the age of five but the proposed vaccination can not be used on them for various reasons. If babies under 6 months are directly vaccinated with H1N1 vaccine, there are chances of sever health complications and even death in some cases. Therefore, as a precautionary measure health experts have recommended the required dosage for caregivers who take care of babies (6 months and below). This will provide protection to them from any possible infection. Infants can also be protected from the H1N1 virus if they are kept away from infected people and if pregnant women receive the vaccine before delivering the child, chances of the new born contracting swine flue after birth will decrease. Read More

	Creating a Spectacular Resume Responsible Careers \| Cynthia Stringer \| Wednesday 28th October 2009 A resume is meant to highlight your most effective and marketable skills and focus you towards your ultimate goal. It positions you in front of others and allows you to summarize your ability to produce results and be an asset to employers. Let's focus on the use of a resume. One main point is that it documents and clarifies what you have to offer and how your skills can be put to good use in the workplace. By consolidating your past and clustering them into segments you see very clearly what you have to offer and what you may need to learn or add in later. Use your resume as a way to summarize and gather your confidence in yourself and accomplishments for past good results. It's important that the statements reflect not just what you did but what the benefit was for the employer or client. Your resume is best utilized by being accomplishment focused not TASK driven. The best way to highlight your strengths is to speak in terms that relate to and communicate what they are looking for in an employer. Identify a specialized format that places your unique selling focus in the foreground. It's important to guide your reader to the result you want and there are many styles and looks that allow you to do that. The best format is the one that allows the reader to experience your job history and specific results that you generated. Take the time to focus in on the top five to six specific examples that relate to and demonstrate your skills. Keep it simple, direct, and specific. Read More

	Culture Clash Sustainable Development \| Kendra Pierre-Louis \| Tuesday 27th October 2009 Last week I attended an Anti-Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining event, co-sponsored by Earth Justice and the coal ash is often improperly stored; just last year a billion gallons of toxic sludge spilled across 300 acres of East Tennessee. And yet, despite all of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining's deleterious effects there are residents of the region who are reluctant to end the practice. I didn't understand why until I attended this event which featured a screening of the documentary film, Coal Country , which explains the effect of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, followed by a brief concert by musicians from the Appalachia region. As I sat in the red velvet seats of New York's Town Hall Theater, I was pulled from the hustle and bustle of Broadway to the rolling hills of Appalachia. Sitting there, it struck me that although Sustainable Development is often framed as an ecological and an economic issue, at its core it's a cultural issue. "Well, I was born a coal miner's daughter\ In a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler\We were poor but we had love\That's the one thing my Daddy made sure of\ He shoveled coal to make a poor man's dollar" begin the lyrics to Appalachian native Loretta Lynn's famous song Coal Miner's daughter. This song is one of thousands, if not tens of thousands of songs from Appalachia that highlight the complicated relationship that Appalachians have had, throughout their history, with the coal mines. The mines give them enough to survive, but often little more, and are often the source of much loss and grief. However uneasy that relationship is, when carpet bagging environmentalists enter this region to say that coal is bad, they are in effect saying that the foundation upon which Appalachians have created their identity is bad, which in turn means Appalachians are bad too. Read More

	The competition conundrum: Can better care cost less? Health \| Ano Lobb \| Monday 26th October 2009 Kevin Long introduces the argument that more competition might actually increase healthcare costs in the US. The logic: Competition opens the field to more players, but having fewer players endows each with larger market share, and therefore greater leverage to negotiate lower prices. This line of reasoning is extended to discourage the entry of not-for-profit healthcare. The central problem with competition in healthcare is that the wrong metrics are currently used to assess winners. Competing on price guarantees that costs will not decline, and in many cases will actually increase. How? Cost is driven by two variables: price and volume. Evidence has shown, and good business practice dictates, that when you decrease the amount that you pay for a service, providers will compensate by increasing volume. Currently in the US, contractual negotiations between insurers and providers tend to focus on the price of services, not the volume. Quality is an afterthought. Volume is left at the discretion of doctors and hospitals, which is bad for costs and for health outcomes. The likelihood that you will receive discretionary services such as non-emergency hospitalization has nothing to do with your underlying health, but on the availability of hospital beds, or doctors available to perform procedures. Once hospitals build more beds, they must keep them filled to get paid, and over 30 years of research by the Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare, and others, shows that is exactly what they do. Have a new operating room and a top notch surgeon? The same business logic applies: You have to feed the surgeon patients to maintain revenue stream. The irony is that regions of the US with the highest costs tend to have the worst outcomes, even after you control for the health of patients. Read More

	Calling for reform Health \| Sam Wertheimer \| Saturday 24th October 2009 Volunteers across the nation sent a strong message in support of American health care reform this week. Motivated by distaste for a broken system, thousands of friends, neighbors, and strangers gathered in living rooms and community centers to call other voters and encourage them to back reform. The callers, collected through President Obama's Organizing for America (OFA) - the updated version of his community-based campaign organization, Obama for America - aimed to place 100,000 calls by the end of the day on Wednesday 10/21. They reached that number by 2:30pm. By midnight volunteers not only phoned over 300,000 voters, they also reached a wider audience because their efforts grabbed the attention of CBS News, the Huffington Post, and other news outlets. On Thursday night, I joined this good work. Below is my not-so-live blog of the event. 7:11pm - The event started at 7 but I'm stuck in parking lot-style traffic on the 405. I'm still learning how to navigate the freeway system in L.A., but I'm pretty sure that rush hour lasts until 10pm every night. 7:30 - Finally arrive and meet my host. Four other volunteers sit in her living room. They discuss strategy and peruse OFA-provided briefing materials. Only two have ever called other voters in support of a political issue. Read More

	Demonstrating your Values creates Good Work! Responsible Careers \| Cynthia Stringer \| Friday 23rd October 2009 Your values are the bedrock and foundation of your professional contribution and work in the world. Most people either don't know what their core values are or they are unable to demonstrate and perform them in the workplace. In this article I will explore with you some ways to identify your values, name some of the common obstacles to sharing your values and this and provide specific advise and suggestions for moving beyond that. The first step to living from and integrating your values into the workplace is becoming intimately familiar with what they are. One way I find to do this easily is to identify when you feel your most present, energized and productive. When you are in this state some people call the Zone or in your sweet spot you naturally produce results and are expanding. In this arena of alignment with your values and your work you naturally are successful and a contribution to yourself and your employer. In contrast a different approach to uncovering your values is ask yourself what bothers you most about the world, about your workplace, and about career life. You can look at the conversations you are invested in, the books you read, the blogs you write and respond to, the places you spend your time and money and the people you spend time with. All of this will point you to identify what your top 5-8 values are. A very powerful question to ask is, "What decisions did you make in your life that were your best ones and what values were being honored?" Read More

	Is Your House Haunted By Phantom Electricity? Ethical Consumption \| Caitlin Chock \| Friday 23rd October 2009 It is the time of the year when the spooks and goblins are busily toiling away and creating mischief at night, but there may be a phantom lurking in your own home without you even knowing it. Phantom energy that is! Phantom energy loss is the amount of electricity being used even when the lights, appliances, and other devices may be turned off, but are still plugged into an outlet. This type of consumer consumption may seem like a negligible amount, as you ask yourself, "how much energy can really be used by simply having my TV, DVD, and cellphone charger plugged in when they aren't in use?" Well, for an average home it may work out to only be about 5% of their total usage, but apply that on a national level and it comes out to roughly 65 billion kilowatt-hours of annual electrical use. Okay, okay, so you are probably thinking, "yea, this is basically wasted energy, but do you really expect me to plug in and unplug my TV every time I turn it on or off?" Well, in an ideal world yes, but let's be realistic, for many households that's a tall order, and for safety reasons we wouldn't want young kids to be messing around with electrical plugs and outlets. But that's not an excuse, there are still ways to cut down on that phantom Read More

	Keeping the Bees: Sustainable Pollinators for Sustainable Food Sustainable Food \| Tricia Edgar \| Friday 23rd October 2009 When I ask the children who visit our nature center what bees do, they generally reply in chorus, "They make honey!" While some bees make honey, all bees are a critical part of our sustainable global food supply: they are a key pollinator species. As they move from flower to flower sipping nectar, they pick up pollen and fertilize plants, enabling crops to create fruit and seeds. In this way, bees are of foundational importance to the sustainability of our food crops. Unfortunately, their numbers are dropping. For years our food crops have relied on the free services of nature's pollinators. Now, as we face the decline of our pollinators, we're asking what's gone wrong. Humans have created a world that is distinctly unfriendly to bees. Large agricultural systems are often monocultures. This means that a single crop is grown in one vast area, an area especially vast if you're a bee. The crop all blooms at approximately the same time and then the nectar is gone: feast or famine for the bees. Aerial applications of insecticides or the spraying of pesticides when crops are blooming also make life harder for these pollinators. To accommodate, farmers have come to rely on honeybees for crop pollination, and beekeepers often move the hives to areas that require intensive pollination. Ironically, this essential bee species is rather new to both Europe and North America. It migrated into Europe centuries ago and was introduced to North America in the 1600s. Today, honeybee colonies are collapsing as worker bees disappear from the colonies, leading to their collapse. Read More