Creative Experimentation: Developing a Skill Critical for Managing Complex Operating Systems (Part 2) MIT SDM Systems Thinking Webinar Series Steven J. Spear Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management; Senior Lecturer, MIT Engineering Systems Division; Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement; and author, The High Velocity Edge Date: January 30, 2012 Time: Noon – 1 p.m. EST Open to all Register   A broad-based capacity for experimentation Read More...

A friend found this wonderful video in an article by Renskee Visscher at TEDx Maastricht, who notes:  “It’s an exaggeration of our dependency on modern technology… at least I hope it still is.” If you can’t see the video, click here. Read More...

Michael Rich, MD, MPH Michael Rich, MD, MPH, is Children’s Hospital Boston’s media expert and director of Children’s Center on Media and Child Health. Take a look at his blog archive or follow him on Twitter @CMCH_Boston Q: I have an son who’s 11 and a daughter who’s 9½, and for many years, they have sat close to the TV when watching. I have asked them to sit farther away, and they do move back maybe a foot…but they always go back to viewing the show close up, even if the Read More...

by Frederick Southwick Too often, everyone assumes the work is being done correctly and that each person knows his or her role. Many customer-supplier relationships are undefined and dysfunctional, and caregivers generally assume they are not empowered to make changes to specific processes. In the absence of a standard model of healthcare delivery, medical errors sneak through the cracks of the disorganized care system. By modeling the healthcare delivery system after successful business Read More...

by Keeley Wray Do your providers have an idea that can revolutionize medicine? Well, it is important they investigate what is currently on the market or in the development pipeline. A thorough analysis of competing technologies is essential to successful market adoption, a step that should follow the ideation phase but precede the building of a prototype or pilot-ready version. The reasoning behind my suggestion is, “You could remake the wheel, but would it be a valuable use of your Read More...

Just say the words head lice and you’ll have parents, teachers and pediatricians cringing. These little creatures, about the size of a sesame seed, mostly affect school-aged children between 2 and 12 years old. Lice also create unnecessary fear and panic. With the cold weather and snow finally here, I’m just waiting for the calls from worried parents about lice and nits. Picture it: Mittens, hats and coats jumbled in piles outside the classroom, with all the kids trying to figure out Read More...

The diagnosis of cirrhosis has experienced important progresses in recent years. In addition to improved techniques for a good diagnose, this diagnosis is now richer in information about patient’s prognosis and the degree of development of pathology. Dr. Guadalupe Garcia-Tsao, from Yale University, spoke about it at a recent IDIBAPS seminar, [...] Read More...

The target audiences of the Virtual Laboratory are secondary education teachers and students, but the activity is available for everyone who wants to learn and have fun Read More...

The ACC/AHA just published guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of HOCM. The highlights include screening (with echo) all first degree relatives with HOCM, and using beta blockers or verapamil for symptoms (angina or dyspnea). Recommendations on when to refer for ablation (drug-refractory symptoms, outflow gradient >50mmHg) and when to refer for ICD (prior arrest or sustained Vtach, sudden cardiac death in first degree relative, unexplained syncope, or non sustained Vtach/abnormal BP Read More...

By Peter Pronovost, MD I was reminded again recently of how important it is to sometimes just sit back and listen to what our patients have to say. Every month, as part of our hospital-wide patient safety efforts, I meet with staff and interview patients, seeking to learn how we can improve the care we provide to them. A young patient shared two stories with me, one telling me how we get it right and one reminding me how we sometimes get it wrong, even without realizing it. She was nervously Read More...

By Fred Trotter Programmable self is a riff on the Quantified Self (QS). It is a simple concept: Quantify what you want to change about yourself + motivational hacks = personal change success. There are several potential “motivation hacks” that people regularly employ. The simplest of these is peer pressure. You could tell all of your co-workers every morning whether you kept your diet last night, for instance. Lots of research has shown that sort of thing is an effective Read More...

Have You Had The Conversation? Helping Loved Ones Discuss End-of-Life Preferences January 26, 2012, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM Eastern Time Guests:Ellen Goodman, Columnist, Author, founding member of The Conversation Project Ira Byock, MD, Professor, Dartmouth Medical School; Director of Palliative Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center Bernard “Bud” Hammes, PhD, Director, Medical Humanities and Respecting Choices®, Gundersen Health System Martha Hayward, Lead for Public and Read More...

I apologize to my non-Massachusetts readers for having yet another column about the insurance company payment situation here in the Boston area, but I know there is a lot of interest around the country about the first state that put in place the kind of health care reform that was modeled at the national level.  Many things are local in the health care world, but the issue of market power is one that is of interest everywhere.  Indeed, there is substantial concern about whether the Read More...

Claire McCarthy MD The other evening, as I was trying to get him into the shower, my 6-year-old son Liam explained to me the meaning of the phrase “hits the spot.” “There is a spot,” he said, pointing to his chest. “It’s small when you are little,” he explained, putting his thumb and index finger close together, “but it gets bigger when you grow up. When you eat something, it passes by that spot and you feel good.” He wriggled out of his pants. “Sometimes it makes you Read More...

Can you guess from what group or sector of the economy this quote hails: She questioned the methodology and the validity of the Council questionnaire, which asks for but does not require the names of respondents. “The survey has no … Continue reading → Read More...

The technical conference Challenges and Risks of Research on Advanced Therapies brings together more than a hundred scientists, companies and professionals to analyze the current status and future prospects of research in advanced therapies. The meeting, held on Friday January 20 in the IDIBAPS ‘ CEK building and jointly organized by Biocat and the Cell [...] Read More...

Histocell, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona and the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) have signed a licensing agreement Read More...

By JOHN GOODMAN Of all the people in the health care system, none is more central than the physician. Fundamental reform that lowers costs, raises quality and improves access to care is almost inconceivable without physicians leading and directing the changes. Yet of all the actors in modern health care, none are more trapped than our nation’s doctors. Let’s consider just a few of the ways your doctor is constrained, unlike any other professional you deal with. No Telephone. Sometime in Read More...

By JOHN GOODMAN Of all the people in the health care system, none is more central than the physician. Fundamental reform that lowers costs, raises quality and improves access to care is almost inconceivable without physicians leading and directing the changes. Yet of all the actors in modern health care, none are more trapped than our nation’s doctors. Let’s consider just a few of the ways your doctor is constrained, unlike any other professional you deal with. No Telephone. Sometime in Read More...

By Anne Dachel

Reports of autism cases per 1,000 children grew dramatically in the US from 1996 to 2007. Source: Wikipedia.

It’s hard to imagine more chaos in the world of autism than what we see happening right now.  Autism is more and more in the public spotlight.  The numbers are huge and no one can explain them.  Since 2009 we’ve been told that one percent of children have autism.  Among boys alone, it’s almost two percent.  Mainstream medicine can’t explain the stunning increase in a once rare disorder.  For years health officials gave doctors credit for all the autism everywhere.  They said it was the result of “greater awareness” and “better diagnosing.”  Children who were mislabeled as something else were now correctly called autistic.  The criteria for diagnosing autism was laid out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and a child with symptoms would be placed somewhere on the autism spectrum, as it came to be known.  This included very high functioning autism and Asperger’s syndrome all the way over to the other end of the spectrum to those with severe intellectual impairment and all the signs of classic autism.

Between 2007 and 2009 the autism rate went from one in 150 to one in every 110 children and even health officials had to admit there was more going on here than just better diagnosing.  It looked like lots more kids really did have autism.  To address this, groups like Autism Speaks poured millions of dollars into studies looking for the gene/genes that cause autism—with no conclusive results.  Studies did turn to the environment, since if the explosion in autism was real, genes alone couldn’t possibly explain it.  We were regularly told about studies linking autism to older dads, older moms, siblings too close together, lack of vitamin D, living too close to a freeway, low birth weight, and the list continues to this day.  The one thing that officials continually denied was any link to the ever-expanding vaccine schedule.  After seeming to study the possible connection in depth, the agency that runs the vaccine program gave their vaccines a clean bill of health.  (And after delivering the coup de grace to the vaccine-autism link, the last head of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Julie Gerberding, became the head of the vaccine division at Merck.)

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By Anne Dachel

Reports of autism cases per 1,000 children grew dramatically in the US from 1996 to 2007. Source: Wikipedia.

It’s hard to imagine more chaos in the world of autism than what we see happening right now.  Autism is more and more in the public spotlight.  The numbers are huge and no one can explain them.  Since 2009 we’ve been told that one percent of children have autism.  Among boys alone, it’s almost two percent.  Mainstream medicine can’t explain the stunning increase in a once rare disorder.  For years health officials gave doctors credit for all the autism everywhere.  They said it was the result of “greater awareness” and “better diagnosing.”  Children who were mislabeled as something else were now correctly called autistic.  The criteria for diagnosing autism was laid out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and a child with symptoms would be placed somewhere on the autism spectrum, as it came to be known.  This included very high functioning autism and Asperger’s syndrome all the way over to the other end of the spectrum to those with severe intellectual impairment and all the signs of classic autism.

Between 2007 and 2009 the autism rate went from one in 150 to one in every 110 children and even health officials had to admit there was more going on here than just better diagnosing.  It looked like lots more kids really did have autism.  To address this, groups like Autism Speaks poured millions of dollars into studies looking for the gene/genes that cause autism—with no conclusive results.  Studies did turn to the environment, since if the explosion in autism was real, genes alone couldn’t possibly explain it.  We were regularly told about studies linking autism to older dads, older moms, siblings too close together, lack of vitamin D, living too close to a freeway, low birth weight, and the list continues to this day.  The one thing that officials continually denied was any link to the ever-expanding vaccine schedule.  After seeming to study the possible connection in depth, the agency that runs the vaccine program gave their vaccines a clean bill of health.  (And after delivering the coup de grace to the vaccine-autism link, the last head of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Julie Gerberding, became the head of the vaccine division at Merck.)

(more…)

It’s not often I see a good article in the lay press on health and medicine. This one from the Chicago Tribune is an exception. It goes like this: Many childhood diseases, thanks to vaccines, disappeared from the scene. A generation of doctors went through training without seeing a single case. They “learned” about these diseases once in med school from lectures and textbooks but never Read More...

by Nancy Cawley Jean Today, roughly 20 percent of the nation’s hospitals use social media. We’re there because that’s where our community is, and it’s a medium that allows us to communicate important health and wellness information and build brand loyalty and awareness, among other reasons. Of course, these are all things you’ve heard before. Unfortunately, using social media is not without risk. You’ve probably heard that before, too. But sometimes, we Read More...

Sandra Fenwick, president and COO I’ve worked at Children’s Hospital Boston for more than a decade, and I’m still inspired every day by the hope and strength I see on the faces of our patients and their families. As Children’s navigates a challenging and evolving health care landscape, I draw on that inspiration and determination, especially when many in our industry seem to imply that cost is the only measure of a hospital’s worth. At Children’s, our worth—our Read More...

Laura Adams, President and CEO of the Rhode Island Quality Institute writes: The Rhode Island Quality Institute in Providence, RI is seeking its first Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and its first Director, Strategy and Development. Both of these positions report to Laura. Founded in 2001, the Rhode Island Quality Institute’s (RIQI) mission is to significantly improve the quality, safety, and value of health care in Rhode Island.  RIQI is a non-profit and a collaboration of Read More...