Can we accurately classify physicians as high vs. low quality? "Medicare aims to tie 90% of reimbursement to quality measures. The potential for quality-linked reimbursement to incentivized improved quality of care, however, depends critically on whether physician quality can be measured reliably."
Source: healthcare-economist.com
NHS England sending anorexic patients to Scotland for treatment: Mental health experts voice concern over growing trend and say it could increase vulnerable patients’ chances of dying
Source: theguardian.com
U.S. Life Expectancy Declines, Albeit Slightly, for First Time in 2 Decades: By Amy Orciari Herman
Edited by André Sofair, MD, MPH, and William E. Chavey, MD, MS
Life expectancy at birth decreased from 78.9 years in 2014 to 78.8 years in 2015 — the first … NEJM Journal Watch.
Source: jwatch.org
Why You Shouldn't Listen to Music While You Work: Unless you’re a truck driver or surgeon, it will hurt your performance.
Source: theatlantic.com
End-of-Rotation House Staff Changes Linked to Increased Patient Mortality: By Amy Orciari Herman
Edited by David G. Fairchild, MD, MPH, and Lorenzo Di Francesco, MD, FACP, FHM
Resident and intern service changes are associated with increased mortality among hospitalized patients, suggests a retrospective...
Source: jwatch.org
Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic: There is considerable scientific interest in understanding how cell assemblies - the long-presumed computational motif - are organized so that the brain can generate cognitive behavior. The Theory of Connectivity proposes that...
Source: frontiersin.org
The Simple Economics of Machine Intelligence. Technological revolutions tend to involve some important activity becoming cheap, like the cost of communication or finding information. Machine intelligence is, in its essence, a prediction technology, so the economic shift will center around a drop in the...
Source: digitopoly.org
Deep Learning Reinvents the Hearing Aid: Finally, wearers of hearing aids can pick out a voice in a crowded room
Source: ieee.org
"Digital-native news outlets in Europe tend to be more focused on delivering quality journalism than on creating new business models or innovating about ways news is presented, according to a new report from Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism that studied 12 online startups in France,...
Source: niemanlab.org
Stadium for Cornwall: Cornish Pirates' Colin Groves hopes work will start in 2017: Cornish Pirates director Colin Groves estimates work on the Stadium for Cornwall will start "in the middle of 2017".
Source: bbc.co.uk
Germany's Aggressive Switch to Renewables Will Save €149 Billion: The country’s goal of lowering its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 is yielding dividends in addition to cleaner air.
Source: ieee.org
Lights for the Enlightened: An Engineering Trek in the Himalayas: How a band of techie volunteers electrified Lingshed monastery and school
Source: ieee.org
Can third-party inspections of whether healthcare organisations are fulfilling mandatory standards improve healthcare outcomes? | Cochrane
Source: cochrane.org
Study: White deaths exceeded births in one-third of states: More white deaths than births were reported in 17 US states, more than in any time in history, compared to only four in 2004. More than 121 million people -- roughly 38 percent of the total US population -- reside in the 17 states with white...
Source: eurekalert.org
Science historians mark 150 years of 'the tree of life' in Nature article: How can we depict diversity? Biologists of the 19th century faced this question as they became aware not only of the huge variety of plant and animal species, but also of the connections between these species. Ultimately it was...
Source: phys.org
EU wants to make e-books, e-newspapers cheaper: The European Union wants to apply the same sales tax rules for digital books and newspapers as their print versions, in a move that would bring down the price of electronic publications.
Source: phys.org
New computational model provides a tool for improving the production of valuable drugs: The model allows scientists to make comprehensive simulations without doing tedious experiments in the laboratory. Hence, the model will tell the scientist, which metabolic pathways are involved in the production...
Source: eurekalert.org
The US government is finally telling people that homeopathy is a sham: Companies that make homeopathic products will be required to spell out that their products are not based on science.
Source: vox.com
In a final betrayal of the Cadbury brand, Kraft has quietly abandoned its promise to stick with Fairtrade: When John Cadbury founded his legendary confectionary firm in 1824, he was selling just three products: tea, coffee and – perhaps more predictably – drinking chocolate. With the help of his...
Source: independent.co.uk
Opec may have done the world a good turn for once: It is not often that the interests of an industry cartel and the global environment are aligned, but the Opec agreement to limit oil production may prove to be just one. The agreement, for the first cut in eight years, had an immediate impact on the...
Source: independent.co.uk