Annual expenditure on healthcare in the United States is currently $2.8 trillion, and about a third of it is wasted, says the Institute of Medicine. The sum wasted is about […]
US healthcare
Hugh Alderwick: The ups and downs on the road to health service improvement
Parallels between the successful transformation of the Veterans Health Administration (VA) in the United States and the changes needed in the NHS in England have been made for a number […]
William Cayley: My Chief Complaint
My chief complaint . . . is with the chief complaint. One of the hallowed concepts in medical history taking and documentation is the “chief complaint.” Supposedly a way to […]
Stuart Buck: Are scholars or journalists more to blame when correlation and causation are confused?
News stories about everything from nutrition to epidemiology to family behavior often confuse correlation with causation. Drink coffee, we are told, and you will lower your risk of dying (or […]
David Kerr: Self obsessing health technology
Has the health tech industry and those who fund it lost the plot? Apparently, the next must have technology is the connected toothbrush. A “data driven oral health startup” company […]
William Cayley: Resilience, obstreperousness, and grit
Some people keep going, and going, and going . . . and some don’t. What makes the difference? I’m not sure we know, but I think it has something to […]
Saurabh Jha: How a fine-tooth comb is entangling Obamacare
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), which recently survived a major scare in the Supreme Court over the constitutionality of the individual mandate, has just met another potential nemesis. Halbig vs. Burwell […]
The BMJ Today: Improving vaccination rates
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) held a press conference to discuss a recent survey, which found that rates of HPV vaccine coverage did […]
The BMJ Today: Dabigatran—the impact of The BMJ’s investigation
“The results of this investigation are somewhat shocking to me, but, reviewing the information, not entirely surprising.” That was the verdict of David Haines, section head of the Heart Rhythm […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: Regenerative medicine—where miracles and science overlap
Regenerative medicine. I did not know it existed until I began working with the Marine Corps. Even writing “regenerative medicine” reminds me that I am not in Bangladesh anymore, trying […]