"...I've discovered that providing good care is entirely about information. If we don't know someone's drug allergies, medical history, and can't effectively communicate between departments, patient safety is impacted."
It is about GOOD information. Too much information is not good. Relying on existing medical information isn't necessarily a good idea either as mistakes are routine.
"Turning away patients may actually save lives if a hospital is unable to provide communication and medical background for a patient."
How? If I currently go to an ER they won't have any information on me anyway.
"Can we please stop with the "Cyber-" every damn thing?"
I think it's awesome (in addition to annoying). It immediately identifies the speaker/writer as a moron (or manager-if those two don't happen to already overlap...)
"If you decide to stay open overnight, and you don't sell much product, sure, you make a small profit on the product that you sell. Then you pay the employee who staffed the register overnight, and you net a loss."
Then you didn't make a profit on the product, now did you? Profit is what you get (or don't) after all expenses.
"Actually, what that study showed is that if you get 200,000 miles out of a Prius and a Hummer, they'll have similar energy costs."
Huh? Considering that the Prius gets over twice the mileage of a Hummer, I find that hard to believe. Having said that I certainly wouldn't trade my used car for a Prius-doesn't make enconomic sense.
And the Prius will certainly use LESS energy. Most of the energy associated with vehicles comes from driving.
"Either way, if you're buying a new car to save the planet you're a dipshit:D"
True. About as useful as calling a large house in the suburbs "green".:)
"According to him, REM sleep is pretty much garbage sleep - you don't need it at all. In fact there are some drugs that suppress that stage of sleep, and they seem to have no effect on overall well being."
Your doctor is an idiot. While you do go through 4 stages of sleep before the REM stage, if you don't get enough REM sleep your body sacrifices the other four stages to ge to REM sleep. It certainly isn't "garbage".
"Hopefully by then you've gained some respect for reporters, most of whom are employed by newspapers."
Who are these reporters that you speak of? I used to value my local papers for the reporting. But they have stopped doing much of it.
Virtually all of the information they provide I can now get from a website. Hell, local public access and government TV channels are more useful for insightful analysis.
"That's the environment in which these bogus journals were able to slip in under the radar."
I see no indications that the journals published fake articles. Certainly biased, but that is no different than most articles. Hence the journals are not bogus.
If there is any problem, it lies with the doctors...
"You need to keep in mind that there is a fair bit of difference between the "scientific community" and "your average GP" (which is who they are targetting with these publications.)"
If higly educated and compensated individuals (doctors) can't tell the difference between good and bad research, then what good are they?
"The CAN but they DON'T. They tweak the price so the unwashed masses pay as much as they're willing to pay and they cram as much advertising as they can on top of that."
Most couldn't do it if they had to. If the newspaper charged me the non-ad supported rate I would not subscribe. Advertising pays the bills-whether it is papers, magazines or the web. The subscriber data is used to justify the ad pricing.
"In reality, their biggest mistake was not containing costs 10 years ago (slowly) to reflect the structural shift of information to a different medium."
Yep. Instead they were bought and consolidated and saddled with massive debt. Most papers would probably do fine without all the debt from mergers and acquisitions.
"The government needs to learn to live within its means."
How? Almost all people want the government to do things for them. However not all people want it to do the same thing (except maybe some entitlements). Which means it spends alot of money on many things.
"Taking more of our money is not an option."
Sure it is. If you don't want to (or are unable to) cut the budget then it is really the only choice....
Do you seriously believe that doctors take the time to actually READ the records? They already complain about the time that record keeping takes.
If they did then I wouldn't have to repeat the same information to ever nurse and doctor that I see in the same office, much less after I am referred to another doctor.
"...it now can be acheived at lower long-term costs and with greater accuracy."
Are you kidding? The electronic records will suck as bad as the paper ones. Probably worse considering the input to create the record, the time to input the data, and the limitations of any format.
I believe it would increase errors because "everyone trusts data"...
Slashdot Mirror
"Also, please note that Asperger's is not the same as autism."
Sure it is. It has been lumped with autism by the medical profession. It may eventually be split out again but until then....
Possibly one of the reasons the autism rate has increased....
"...I've discovered that providing good care is entirely about information. If we don't know someone's drug allergies, medical history, and can't effectively communicate between departments, patient safety is impacted."
It is about GOOD information. Too much information is not good. Relying on existing medical information isn't necessarily a good idea either as mistakes are routine.
"Turning away patients may actually save lives if a hospital is unable to provide communication and medical background for a patient."
How? If I currently go to an ER they won't have any information on me anyway.
that said Bing.
"Have you got any idea how difficult it is to refute an experimental outcome, at least in the less exact sciences?"
The inability to recreate the experiment is a basic method to refute the outcome.
If you can't get their procedure and/or their procedure doesn't work then the outcome is very questionable...
"Can we please stop with the "Cyber-" every damn thing?"
I think it's awesome (in addition to annoying). It immediately identifies the speaker/writer as a moron (or manager-if those two don't happen to already overlap...)
"...they'll start seriously blending advertising inside news content. I don't want that to happen!"
Too late. There is a reason companies put out press releases that read like a news story....
"I think the point of having the lawyers there (or mentioning it) is to say that what they're planning may be very borderline."
Maybe. But if the airlines are any indication it is really hard to get sued for antitrust issues....
"If you decide to stay open overnight, and you don't sell much product, sure, you make a small profit on the product that you sell. Then you pay the employee who staffed the register overnight, and you net a loss."
Then you didn't make a profit on the product, now did you? Profit is what you get (or don't) after all expenses.
"...when are they going to do an analogue to Alien 4, and make the story so stupid that I can't even tolerate sitting through it?"
I think they already did. It was Alien 3.
"Shipping is cheaper for me than gas and time to visit the store, and I evaluate quality by visiting appropriate forums."
Really? Ever price the shipping for a large TV, especially if you have to return it or get warranty work?
The best electronics/ products can still be damaged or fail. While many products are well packaged, I still wouldn't trust most delivery services.
Now for smaller/cheaper items....
This of course doesn't really apply to cars. Most energy use occurs due to driving the car, not its manufacture.
It may not apply to large energy sucking appliances either....
"Actually, what that study showed is that if you get 200,000 miles out of a Prius and a Hummer, they'll have similar energy costs."
Huh? Considering that the Prius gets over twice the mileage of a Hummer, I find that hard to believe. Having said that I certainly wouldn't trade my used car for a Prius-doesn't make enconomic sense.
And the Prius will certainly use LESS energy. Most of the energy associated with vehicles comes from driving.
"Either way, if you're buying a new car to save the planet you're a dipshit :D"
True. About as useful as calling a large house in the suburbs "green". :)
"According to him, REM sleep is pretty much garbage sleep - you don't need it at all. In fact there are some drugs that suppress that stage of sleep, and they seem to have no effect on overall well being."
Your doctor is an idiot. While you do go through 4 stages of sleep before the REM stage, if you don't get enough REM sleep your body sacrifices the other four stages to ge to REM sleep. It certainly isn't "garbage".
"Hopefully by then you've gained some respect for reporters, most of whom are employed by newspapers."
Who are these reporters that you speak of? I used to value my local papers for the reporting. But they have stopped doing much of it.
Virtually all of the information they provide I can now get from a website. Hell, local public access and government TV channels are more useful for insightful analysis.
Many papers are dooming themselves to oblivion.
So they can pretend to do something.
A position with the title of Czar is one that has absolutely no power to do anything.
"That's the environment in which these bogus journals were able to slip in under the radar."
I see no indications that the journals published fake articles. Certainly biased, but that is no different than most articles. Hence the journals are not bogus.
If there is any problem, it lies with the doctors...
"You need to keep in mind that there is a fair bit of difference between the "scientific community" and "your average GP" (which is who they are targetting with these publications.)"
If higly educated and compensated individuals (doctors) can't tell the difference between good and bad research, then what good are they?
The problem isn't Big Pharma or the journals....
"The journals seem to be intended to mislead the reader into believing that research and reporting has been done which has not."
But what if the research WAS done? Does the data/research meet the industry standards? As far as I can tell, it was. So there is no fraud
How is this different from any other journal that arbitrarily decides what articles to publish?
The whole point of medical research is to influence doctors.
"...(and asking more hard-hitting questions)..."
And these are the people who won't be allowed to ask questions. The press room is there to get their message out, not to inform.
"The CAN but they DON'T. They tweak the price so the unwashed masses pay as much as they're willing to pay and they cram as much advertising as they can on top of that."
Most couldn't do it if they had to. If the newspaper charged me the non-ad supported rate I would not subscribe. Advertising pays the bills-whether it is papers, magazines or the web. The subscriber data is used to justify the ad pricing.
"In reality, their biggest mistake was not containing costs 10 years ago (slowly) to reflect the structural shift of information to a different medium."
Yep. Instead they were bought and consolidated and saddled with massive debt. Most papers would probably do fine without all the debt from mergers and acquisitions.
"High contrast, fairly crisp text, no glare, can be read in sunlight... you can't get that on a tablet PC."
I believe you can. It won't be cheap-you'll need to look to the professional level products-toughbooks for instance.
"The government needs to learn to live within its means."
How? Almost all people want the government to do things for them. However not all people want it to do the same thing (except maybe some entitlements). Which means it spends alot of money on many things.
"Taking more of our money is not an option."
Sure it is. If you don't want to (or are unable to) cut the budget then it is really the only choice....
Do you seriously believe that doctors take the time to actually READ the records? They already complain about the time that record keeping takes.
If they did then I wouldn't have to repeat the same information to ever nurse and doctor that I see in the same office, much less after I am referred to another doctor.
"...it now can be acheived at lower long-term costs and with greater accuracy."
Are you kidding? The electronic records will suck as bad as the paper ones. Probably worse considering the input to create the record, the time to input the data, and the limitations of any format.
I believe it would increase errors because "everyone trusts data"...