Free Academic Articles Online: A Good Idea?

The Wilson Quarterly looks at whether or not putting academic journals online is a good idea.  Although getting access to academic articles is easier than ever, scholars are concentrating their reading on a less diverse range of articles. “As journals go online, researchers actually see less of their contents.  For every additional year of archives…

In Support of Corporate Medicine

Arnold Kling and Michael Cannon believe that the idea of the physician as a lone independent craftsment is out-of-date.  The authors contend that healthcare quality would improve and costs would drop if physicians adopted a more corporate environment.  Larger organizations, such as the Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente and Veterans Affairs all benefit from economies of…

Cavalcade of Risk

SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Reading this edition of the Cavalcade of Risk puts you at risk of certain side effects such as: a sudden increase in intelligence; gaining a basic understanding of how health care and health insurance works in the UK and at General Mills; nausea from recent economic news.  This news includes investigating the parallels…

$1.1 billion for Comparative Effectiveness Research

Regarding my post on Monday, Obama’s stimulus package–a.k.a. the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)–includes 1.1 billion dollars for clinical comparative effectiveness research. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), ARRA “allocates $1.1 billion for comparative clinical effectiveness research, including $300 million for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and $400 million each…

Should the U.S. get NICE?

All health services researches know that comparative-effectiveness research is a vital link towards improving quality and decreasing cost.  Comparative effectiveness examines different medical treatments and evaluates which are the most cost effective.  The UK’s NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) publishes clinical appraisals regarding which treatments the NHS should cover. Should the U.S. create a…