Serious Medical Condition: Brewers Fever!

The Milwaukee Brewers have made it to post-season play for the first time since 1982!  If you are a Brewers fans, check out Bob Uecker’s call of Ryan Braun’s HR and CC Sabathia getting the final outs.  The Brewers first playoff game will be in Philadelphia on Wednesday. Go Crew! Coverage: Michael Hunt at the…

Results of the Health Care Bloggers Survey

Who are health care bloggers?  Ivor Kovic, Ileana Lulic, Gordana Brumini (2008) conducted a survey to find out. “The majority of responding bloggers were white (75%), highly educated (71% with a Masters degree or doctorate), male (59%), residents of the United States (72%), between the ages of 30 and 49 (58%), and working in the…

Hire the Healthcare Economist

This year the Healthcare Economist, Jason Shafrin, will be completing his Ph.D. in health economics at the University of California, San Diego.  He will be available for interviewing at the AEA meetings in San Francisco, January 3-5.  For more information regarding Jason Shafrin’s credentials and his contact information, visit his homepage: jasonshafrin.com.

Hospital Wristbands

The N.Y. Times writes about how hospitals have standardized patient warning wristbands.  Now, red wristbands will denote an allergy risk, yellow will denote a fall risk, and so on.  This should be the same at all hospitals, reducing the need to re-train nurses and other hospital staff who move between hospitals. “The drive [to standardize…

Why Bush and Paulson are Wrong

President Bush’s speech tonight urged Americans to side with the Bush-Bernanke-Paulson worldview that a bailout is the only option.  Is it the only option? Luigi Zingales believes Henry Paulson’s decision to bail out Wall Street is a mistake.  Most economists agree that the government won’t get a “deal” when negotiating the price of risky assets. “In…

2008 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowships Awarded

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded 25 individiuals with their 2008 “Genius” grants.  Among these 25 individuals, two deal specifically with the field of medicine. Peter Provonost uses evidence-based medicine to standardize quality of care.  To address the problem of catheter infections, “Pronovost culled lengthy guidelines into a simple checklist of five…

Is American Health Care Inefficient?

Economists generally define efficiency in two manners: productive efficiency and allocative efficiency.  Productive efficiency means producing a good or service using fewest inputs.  A car company who produces a car that costs $20,000 to manufacture is less efficient than a company that can produce that same car (at the same quality) at a cost of…