Latest Tweets:
It’s easy to make fancy products for the chunk of the world that can buy them. But imagine the potential if you made a product that everyone—even the world’s poor—could buy and use.
Patients Make Poor Health-Care Consumers
“Consumer-driven healthcare doesn’t work because people don’t want health care,” he said. The three main factors that drive consumers to make a choice: price, quality and desire, said Cohen. When it comes to health care, however, price doesn’t correspond with quality, so going to a more expensive doctor doesn’t guarantee better treatment. It’s also difficult to judge quality when it comes to health care, he said. He gives the example of his own father getting a recommendation about a doctor not from his physician son, but from a nice guy in the lobby of the hospital. “The guy sold doughnuts,” said Cohen. People like to use service to judge quality, such as whether the doctor’s office calls back quickly, holds evening hours or has parking, rather than the more important measures like judgment and experience, he says. Patients have to do a lot more digging to get the more vital information and don’t know how to get the information or whom to ask. Finally, desire is critical to being a critical consumer. “It’s amazing what people will do when they really want something,” said Cohen, and in many cases, people don’t have such motivation when it comes to quality health care. For example, people with high-deductible plans or health savings plans tend not to spend money to get basic care, he says.
Drawing Borders
Have you ever thought about how borders were drawn? How did the borders of the United States come to be? We know that throughout the years it has changed, but what caused those changes? Here is one person’s view: http://www.kafalas.com/urbcol86.htm
The issue with borders and healthcare is that healthcare crosses borders. It cross city borders, county borders, state borders, even national borders. If there is no neurosurgeon in your state, you may have to travel to see a neurosurgeon. As healthcare reform is implemented, the border issue is a big one. A local and state jurisdiction is not how the federal regulatory agency may view health jurisdiction; they may see the jurisdiction as referral patterns down to the individual patient. If healthcare truly falls under the commere clause and crosses states, why doesn’t HHS’ jurisdiction transcend borders? I know I just tried to simplify a very complex regulatory issue, but one can hope right?
6 ways Google hacks its cafeteria to get healthier and happier employees.
Much has changed since Google earned a reputation for fattening its staffers with food on demand. These days, the company is focused on advancing its healthy-eating initiatives. Explains Jennifer Kurkoski, who has a PhD in organizational behavior and runs a division of Google’s HR department called People Analytics, “When employees are healthy, they’re happy. When they’re happy, they’re innovative.”
Healthy eating innovations? Can hospitals and state agencies do the same?
Jay Parkinson + MD + MPH = a doctor in NYC: Why is making healthcare easy so hard?
Well, the simple answer is there are too many players and partnerships between them are next to impossible to broker. In order to fix the healthcare experience we all hate, the partners must have a singular vision for a better experience, and then broker the deal so we all benefit. There are a…
A breakdown of what the average American household buys, based on government data (PDF) for December, 2011.
We didn’t include everything, but we included the biggies, as well as some smaller categories that caught our eye.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / Planet Money
Dear average Americans, please spend more on books, magazines, and newspapers and less on alcohol. Your friend, Newsweek.
We second that emotion, but can we start with lowering the utilities bill first? Signed, Fast Company
Another look at what America buys
What America buys
In the spirit of The Atlantic
