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Category: health care reform
23May 2012
Nicholas Thompson, the editor of NewYorker.com and a co-founder of The Atavist, has just tweeted news of the creation of a new "health care hub" at The New Yorker's website.
One of the lead pieces, currently, is a recent story on face transplants, with a photo that will...
In an article in JAMA headlined, "What Patients Really Want From Health Care," Allan S. Detsky says, "patients primarily focus on relieving illness and symptoms rather than disease prevention."
Interesting if...
In an article in JAMA headlined, "What Patients Really Want From Health Care," Allan S. Detsky says, "patients primarily focus on relieving illness and symptoms rather than disease prevention."
Interesting if true, as we say. But what is the basis for this assertion? Detsky has an M.D. and a Ph.D., but this is not a scientific article. It's an opinion piece. And it reads like journalism to me, which is why I'm paying attention to it here. But, sadly, it appears to be based mainly on Detsky's preconceived beliefs, as far as we can tell. Little of it is footnoted, and JAMA doesn't do links.
If patients focus on treating illness rather than prevention,...
"There are really only two ways to make Medicare cost less: Pay health care...
"There are really only two ways to make Medicare cost less: Pay health care providers like doctors and hospitals less, or make Medicare patients pay more."
That was reporter Julie Rovner on NPR today. Really? That's it? Let's take a look...
Rovner, a reporter whose work I generally admire, seems to have missed something in this story. And perhaps it's because she told the story in distressingly typical Washington fashion: Not he says-she says, but Democrat says-Republican says.
Relying on partisans to give us predictably partisan opinions is rarely going to get a reporter anywhere...
Today's journalism riddle: What do you lead with--number of cancer cases, or number of deaths?
If you're a classic newspaper type, you get the deaths in the lede, no matter what. If a boat capsized, for example, the AP bulletin would look something like this: "Boat capsizes, killing at least thirty-two. MORE...
Today's journalism riddle: What do you lead with--number of cancer cases, or number of deaths?
If you're a classic newspaper type, you get the deaths in the lede, no matter what. If a boat capsized, for example, the AP bulletin would look something like this: "Boat capsizes, killing at least thirty-two. MORE." Never mind who, what, when, where, and why--the deaths get in the lede, and you worry about the details later.
Today's story concerns studies from the Archives of Internal Medicine concluding that CT scans could be causing 14,500 deaths a year and 29,000 cases of cancer.
Thomas H. Maugh of the Los Angeles Times doesn't get the deaths or the cancer cases in the lede, and consequently they are not in the headline. But the 14,500 figure is in the deck underneath the headline....
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