I had lunch with a colleague who is finishing his MBA in May. We talked about what he planned to do going forward. The conversation then turned to doctors and the way they see themselves and their options. In medicine we’re used to having the way paved for us. We do what’s been done before. When you’re training to be a doctor you’re always looking to the next thing. When you’re a student, your endpoint is getting into medical school. In medical school you see residency as the goal. During residency you count the days to completion or look to do a fellowship. In…
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Most Topular Stories
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Lockstep Physicians
33 Charts8 Feb 2012 | 4:31 pm -
How do they know you're not a flake?
Seth's Blog8 Feb 2012 | 2:43 amBefore your link gets clicked or your proposal gets read, a busy person is going to triage it to find out if it's even worth glancing at. Since everyone is now connected, the new permeability has created a deluge of noise, and just about everyone worth contacting is taking defensive measures. Do I know this person? Did someone I trust send them over? Where does she work? (Ideo? the FDA? The New York Times?) Has she won an award? Is she famous? Are there typos and is the design sloppy? Are they pestering me? Do I already follow this person online? Does music play when I visit the website? Will… -
How to Succinctly Report a Blog Issue to Tech Support
@ProBlogger8 Feb 2012 | 6:07 amThis guest post is by Matthew Setter of Malt Blue. How often do you find it happening to you? You discover an issue with your site, or one of your community members emails you to tell you about it, and soon you start to see tweets about it too. Maybe it’s as simple as an error message that detracts from the professional appearance of your site. Perhaps the contact form doesn’t send messages to your contact email address. Or is it that the whole site just displays as a blank page, otherwise known as the white page of death? You’re not a programmer, a software engineer or a seasoned… -
Apple Determines iTunes Match Royalties By Counting How Many Times A Song is Accessed
MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page8 Feb 2012 | 1:56 pmTuneCore president Jeff Price today wrote a blog post praising Apple's iTunes Match service for creating money "out of thin air" for copyright holders. iTunes Match launched with all the major record labels on board, but some small labels refused to participate over concerns the service was legitimizing music pirates. Price disagrees: A person has a song on her computer hard drive. She clicks on the song and plays it. No one is getting paid. The same person pays iTunes $25 for iMatch. She now clicks on the same song and plays it through her iMatch service. Copyright holders get paid. -
DKNY Takes Top Honors at Fashion 2.0 Awards
Mashable!8 Feb 2012 | 6:41 pmAfter nabbing four of the eight awards handed out at last year’s Fashion 2.0 Awards, apparel brand DKNY was once again recognized for its use of digital media, taking home awards for Best Twitter and Best Blog by a Fashion Brand. The honors are well deserved. DKNY’s Twitter account and Tumblr blog, both of which are run by Donna Karan International SVP of Global Communciations Aliza Licht, are entertaining, informative and exceptionally on-brand. The Twitter account features, among other things, live blogs of CW show Gossip Girl each week, and frequently engages in conversations…
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33 Charts
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Lockstep Physicians
8 Feb 2012 | 4:31 pmI had lunch with a colleague who is finishing his MBA in May. We talked about what he planned to do going forward. The conversation then turned to doctors and the way they see themselves and their options. In medicine we’re used to having the way paved for us. We do what’s been done before. When you’re training to be a doctor you’re always looking to the next thing. When you’re a student, your endpoint is getting into medical school. In medical school you see residency as the goal. During residency you count the days to completion or look to do a fellowship. In… -
Microstyle Microreview
7 Feb 2012 | 4:01 pmIf you have a chance, pick up a copy of Microstyle – The Art of Writing Little by naming consultant Christopher Johnson. It’s about our new expressive economy in language: getting a lot of idea out of a little message. Johnson calls this the era of microstyle, a new era of verbal communication that technology made possible. Microstyle is part of a broader cultural phenomenon trending toward brevity. Here’s a teaser: So, how do you pack a lot of meaning into a little message? You don’t. That’s the first lesson of microstyle. A message isn’t a treasure chest full of meaning. -
Big Doctor Data
31 Jan 2012 | 9:22 amI recently gave Grand Rounds to the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. Here’s what was going through my head as I looked out over the podium: ‘Just imagine what’s out there.’ Not the people, necessarily, but what they know. Imagine if we could harness that knowledge and wisdom. And what would it be like if we could package, tag, and archive all of that understanding on the web. Clinical wisdom, procedural pearls, solutions, opinions, unusual patterns, unique cases, hard-learned lessons, and even simple stories. It could take the form of video, audio,… -
What Would Osler Think?
30 Jan 2012 | 11:48 amMedicine is changing quickly. In the context of these changes I hear this question occasionally: ‘What would Osler think?’ What would he think of imaging before examination? How would he feel about medical residents rounding with one eye on the EHR? It’s an interesting question and one that highlights the fact that we’re a profession preoccupied with our past. We like to quote iconic figures of medical history. Their pictures hang in the lecture halls that shape the youngest minds in medicine. We’re trained from early on to keep pace with the past. We cross-check where… -
The Future of Patient Stories
25 Jan 2012 | 6:07 pmAll day long I listen to stories. Some doctors use genetic analysis or study shadows. Others push laparoscopic trochars. I listen and look for patterns. Sure I study the intestinal mucosa with fiberoptics. And the physical exam can add something. But the real money’s in the stories. It’s used to be that stories and patterns drove medicine. Narrative and intuition were all we had. Then came technology and all its precision. But I suspect that as medicine becomes more and more precise, the stories will find their way home. They say that the future of medicine…
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Seth's Blog
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How do they know you're not a flake?
8 Feb 2012 | 2:43 amBefore your link gets clicked or your proposal gets read, a busy person is going to triage it to find out if it's even worth glancing at. Since everyone is now connected, the new permeability has created a deluge of noise, and just about everyone worth contacting is taking defensive measures. Do I know this person? Did someone I trust send them over? Where does she work? (Ideo? the FDA? The New York Times?) Has she won an award? Is she famous? Are there typos and is the design sloppy? Are they pestering me? Do I already follow this person online? Does music play when I visit the website? Will… -
Horizontal marketing isn't a new idea
7 Feb 2012 | 2:09 amBut it is the new reality for just about every organization. Vertical marketing means the marketer (the one with money) is in charge. Vertical marketing starts at the top and involves running ads, sending out direct mail and pushing hype through the media. Your money, your plans, your control. It might not work, but generally the worst outcome is that you will be ignored and need to spend more money. Horizonal marketing, on the other hand, means creating a remarkable product and story and setting it up to spread from person to person. It's out of your control, because all the interactions are… -
Who is your customer?
6 Feb 2012 | 2:26 amRule one: You can build a business on the foundation of great customer service. Rule two: The only way to do great customer service is to treat different customers differently. The question: Who is your customer? It's not obvious. Zappos is a classic customer service company, and their customer is the person who buys the shoes. Nike, on the other hand, doesn't care very much at all about the people who buy the shoes, or even the retailers. They care about the athletes (often famous) that wear the shoes, sometimes for money. They name buildings after these athletes, court them, erect… -
In search of a timid trapeze artist
5 Feb 2012 | 2:01 amGood luck with that, there aren't any. If you hesitate when leaping from rope to another, you're not going to last very long. And this is at the heart of what makes innovation work in organizations, why industries die, and how painful it is to try to maintain the status quo while also participating in a revolution. Gather up as much speed as you can, find a path and let go. You can't get to the next rope if you're still holding on to this one. -
Will energy consumption stay private?
4 Feb 2012 | 11:45 amIt's clear that the consumption of energy has external effects that impact more than just the person who is paying for it. Geopolitical, health and economic issues come to the neighbors and nearby citizens of entities that are using a lot of power. It was always straightforward to see who was burning a lot of wood or drove a huge car. It's easy to see when a company has a huge smokestake belching carbon. What happens when sensors make it easy to see how efficient a machine is, how much of a resource is being consumed and how much exhaust is being spewed? What happens when Google maps shows…
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@ProBlogger
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How to Succinctly Report a Blog Issue to Tech Support
8 Feb 2012 | 6:07 amThis guest post is by Matthew Setter of Malt Blue. How often do you find it happening to you? You discover an issue with your site, or one of your community members emails you to tell you about it, and soon you start to see tweets about it too. Maybe it’s as simple as an error message that detracts from the professional appearance of your site. Perhaps the contact form doesn’t send messages to your contact email address. Or is it that the whole site just displays as a blank page, otherwise known as the white page of death? You’re not a programmer, a software engineer or a seasoned… -
Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger: Part 2
7 Feb 2012 | 12:05 pmThis guest post is by Devesh of WP Kube. A few months ago, I wrote a guest post here called How to Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger. Today, I’ll go into some more detailed advice to help you speed up your site even more. If you’re a blogger, you already know about the importance of blog loading speed, and the role it plays in search engine rank and marketing your blog. But if this is new territory for you, here are three quick reasons why you need to speed up your blog: Google includes website loading speed as an important metric in their ranking algorithm. If you want… -
How I Beat my Best Month Ever by Doing Something Good, Better [Case Study]
7 Feb 2012 | 6:04 amMid-December 2010: on my photography site, we launched a new campaign—our first ever 12 Days of Christmas promotion. The result was my biggest month of earnings ever up to that point. The idea was simple: offer discounts on 12 products over the 12 days leading up to Christmas. I used a mix of my own ebooks and products from other photography sites with affiliate commissions. The result was massive. Not only did we see some great revenue generated, it created some lovely buzz on the site. Due to the success of the 2010 campaign, in mid-December 2011 we launched our second 12 Days of… -
Six Steps to Make Sure Your Site Is Ready to Go Viral
6 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amThis guest post is by Nancy Sathre-Vogel of Family on Bikes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Surely Google Analytics was confusing my site with another, way more popular site. There was no way my visitor numbers could be so high! And yet they were. One of my posts had taken off and was spreading like wildfire. Those viral post phenomena that happen to others were now happening to me. The first day, 17,000 visitors came to my website. The next day we topped out at 56,000. Readers were coming in droves. It was exciting. It was exhilarating. My site, viral! Wow! And then I took a… -
How to Handle Criticism: a Practical Guide
5 Feb 2012 | 12:03 pmImage by Stuart RichardsAs bloggers, each of us has to deal with criticism. Blogging is a very public activity—almost all of us has the goal of gaining readers to our blogs—and the more people you reach, the more likely it is that you’ll hear criticisms. “You’re wrong…” “How can you say that? You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “I couldn’t disagree more…” “This is the last time I read this blog!” These are just some of the criticisms bloggers regularly face—I’ve received versions of…
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MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page
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Apple Determines iTunes Match Royalties By Counting How Many Times A Song is Accessed
8 Feb 2012 | 1:56 pmTuneCore president Jeff Price today wrote a blog post praising Apple's iTunes Match service for creating money "out of thin air" for copyright holders. iTunes Match launched with all the major record labels on board, but some small labels refused to participate over concerns the service was legitimizing music pirates. Price disagrees: A person has a song on her computer hard drive. She clicks on the song and plays it. No one is getting paid. The same person pays iTunes $25 for iMatch. She now clicks on the same song and plays it through her iMatch service. Copyright holders get paid. -
Photo of iPad 3 Rear Shell Suggests Minor Physical Changes, Larger Battery
8 Feb 2012 | 12:52 pm(Click here for larger version) RepairLabs reports that it has received a photo of what is claimed to the inside of the rear shell of the iPad 3, comparing the part to the corresponding version found on the iPad 2. The iPad 3 version demonstrates a few minor changes compared to the iPad 2, with one of the most notable being an apparently narrower logic board that could make room for an expanded battery.A. You can see here that the mounts for the logic board are very different, which means the logic board shape will be different allowing for . . . . B. More battery. The width of where the… -
Siri Support for Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Russian Languages Coming Next Month?
8 Feb 2012 | 10:42 amTech in Asia reports on an article [Google translation] from Chinese information technology website DoNews claiming that Apple is preparing to bring support for the Chinese language to Siri on the iPhone 4S next month. According to the report, Apple is also preparing to launch support for Japanese and Russian, but the initial Chinese support will only include Mandarin, with Cantonese and other dialects being left out for the time being.The Chinese tech site DoNews claims to have heard from an Apple engineer who’s working on the Chinese-language version of Siri, the clever voice assistant on… -
Apple Pushes for Clarification on Licensing of FRAND Patents
8 Feb 2012 | 8:33 amDow Jones Newswires reports that Apple filed a letter with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) last November pushing for clarification on how standards-essential patents are intended to be licensed. These standards-essential patents are currently required to be licensed under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms in order to promote competition in the marketplace, but Apple claims that there is too much confusion in the industry about how such licensing should be handled.Apple said in its letter--which was dated Nov. 11, but not previously… -
Sprint Sells 1.8 Million iPhones in 4Q 2011, 40% to New Subscribers
8 Feb 2012 | 6:55 amSprint today became the last of the three major U.S. iPhone carriers to report earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011, disclosing that it sold a total of 1.8 million iPhones during the quarter. While well below the 7.6 million activations reported by AT&T and the 4.3 million activations reported by Verizon, Sprint's iPhone surge helped it achieve a new record high subscriber base of 55 million customers. Notably, 40% of Sprint's iPhone purchasers were new to the carrier, highlighting the device's ability to attract customers from other carriers. That percentage is on par with AT&T's…
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Mashable!
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DKNY Takes Top Honors at Fashion 2.0 Awards
8 Feb 2012 | 6:41 pmAfter nabbing four of the eight awards handed out at last year’s Fashion 2.0 Awards, apparel brand DKNY was once again recognized for its use of digital media, taking home awards for Best Twitter and Best Blog by a Fashion Brand. The honors are well deserved. DKNY’s Twitter account and Tumblr blog, both of which are run by Donna Karan International SVP of Global Communciations Aliza Licht, are entertaining, informative and exceptionally on-brand. The Twitter account features, among other things, live blogs of CW show Gossip Girl each week, and frequently engages in conversations… -
Connected Cars: How to Accelerate Mainstream Adoption
8 Feb 2012 | 6:20 pmSteve Tengler is a user experience (UX) director at Altia, Inc. He spent over 20 years in automotive design at OnStar, Nissan and Ford. Every so often, the media tells us about an automotive manufacturer on the cusp of delivering wireless, cooperative systems. The reader immediately thinks of Knight Rider, and wanders through a fantasy of connected car heaven. However, this type of news is often miles from accurate; connected car offerings in the near-to-distant future are a different reality. This article examines the delays behind that “nearly done” automotive technology, and analyzes… -
Snooki Channels Her Inner Zuckerberg With New Facebook Game
8 Feb 2012 | 6:07 pmSnooki's Match Game Jersey Shore star Zucki ... uh, I mean Snooki has just unleashed her first Facebook game. Dubbed Snooki’s Match Game, it strikingly resembles Facemash, Mark Zuckerberg's site from 2003 that challenged users to pick the hotter person pictured in two separate photographs.Click here to view this gallery.Jersey Shore star Zucki … uh, I mean Snooki, has just unleashed her first Facebook game. Dubbed Snooki’s Match Game, it bears a striking resemblance to Facemash, Mark Zuckerberg‘s site from 2003 that challenged users to pick the hotter person pictured in two… -
ESPN’s ‘Complain About Women’ Option Exposed by Twitter User
8 Feb 2012 | 5:42 pmUntil Tuesday, ESPN had a special section on its website for viewers to complain specifically about announcers who happen to be female. “Commentator — dislike female commentators,” read one option in a drop-down menu that enables viewers to provide feedback about coverage topics including blacked-out games, camera angels and audio/video issues, according to a screenshot posted by Twitter user Megan Soisson on Tuesday. Here is the tweet: wait this is a serious complaint of @espn viewers? twitter.com/msois/status/1… — Megan Soisson (@msois) February 7, 2012 Soisson is… -
Valley Still Beats Alley in Meetup Tech Groups
8 Feb 2012 | 5:31 pmSilicon Valley’s tech scene still beats out Silicon Alley’s, at least as far as Meetup numbers go. Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman announced at the 6,180-member New York Tech Meetup on Wednesday that Bay area tech Meetup groups had more RSVPs in 2011 than those in any other city. New York City had the second-most members of Meetup tech group RSVPers, followed by London, Washington D.C. and Chicago. The fastest-growing tech scene on Meetup, based on RSVPs, was Hong Kong, followed by Melbourne, Detroit and Paris. This ranking, of course, is heavily dependent upon Meetup adoption and not…
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Copyblogger
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The “New” SEO Secret Weapon
8 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amIf you have a web site, you may have noticed one of two things about the traffic you get from search engines. Your search traffic may have dried up overnight, with once-healthy streams turning into a sad little trickle. Or you may have noticed a nice, steady improvement as you’ve climbed higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages), while other sites that used to outrank you suddenly evaporated. There’s a super-secret new ingredient in SEO. It was always a factor, but it’s become even more important recently, as the Google team relentlessly declares war on what they see… -
8 Quick Tips for Writing Bullet Points People Actually Want to Read
7 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amIt’s a Twitterized world, we’re just living in it. Blog posts, Tweets, quick videos, Google+, the Facebook Timeline, and tens of thousands of images pinned to digital boards are flying past us faster than we can read them. Faster than we can even scan them, depending on the time of day. What does this mean for writers trying to cut through it all? At least two things that I can think of: You’d better know how to write a compelling headline You’d better know how to write bullet points that grab (and keep) your reader We’re not telling you to keep your copy short. -
7 Crucial Tactics for Writing a Wildly Successful Guest Post
6 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amWe all know that guest posts grow blogs. But not many people realize that tactical guest posting grows careers. Most bloggers I see pump out these articles while reciting the mantra “quantity over quality”; there’s no real strategy and there are no real long-term benefits. In this post I am going to show you the seven crucial tactics for writing a radically successful guest post. Done right, these strategies will get you more email subscribers, coveted Google ranking positions, and a big head-start on your content marketing goals. Who am I to teach you about guest blogging? -
7 Smashing Social Media Marketing Links
4 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amThis week on The Lede … What really works on Twitter One thing social media copywriters should never do 9 productive social media hacks A reminder of the power of the original social media If you just can’t wait for The Lede every Saturday, and you want even more practical, useable links than the seven we highlight here every week, follow @copyblogger on Twitter. It’s painless. Really. // 9 Social Media Hacks You Need to Embrace Now Mr. Baer makes a good case that though social media is inexpensive in monetary terms, it can get good and costly when it comes to spending your… -
Whether You Call it Blogging or Not, Online Content Still Rules
3 Feb 2012 | 5:00 amWhat if most of the business world stopped blogging tomorrow? Would you stop as well? No, if that happened, you’d find yourself sitting on the opportunity of a lifetime. Social networking sites would explode with likes and retweets and pins and +1s of your original content all day long. This is why the annual “blogging is dead” claim is so dumb. Even if it were true, your continued content production would dominate the web in every way. So, instead of worrying about the latest claimed trend or alarming decline of the moment, stay the course. Original content creation is the…
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Being Peter Kim
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Is social media free?
2 Feb 2012 | 12:22 amIn 2002, I was having a budget conversation with my CFO. I was general manager of the online store and we were discussing my requests for FTEs, technology upgrades, and marketing spend. The CFO asked me, "this is an online store...why do we need to spend any more money...doesn't it run itself?" (I'm 99% sure he wasn't joking.) This week, news has been circulating that FMCG company Procter & Gamble will eliminate 1,600 jobs and shift more budget into digital media. The headline over at Business Insider is a bit more incendiary: "P&G To Lay Off 1,600 After Discovering It's Free To…
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Daniel Pink
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Help Kathryn come up with a job title
7 Feb 2012 | 4:41 amKathryn, a reader in Canada, wrote to me last week asking for some advice. Since history has shown that your advice is always way better than mine, I’m posing her challenge to you, Dear Readers. She writes: “I’d just finished your book, Drive, when I was approached out of the blue about taking on a new and exciting job working with a cutting edge athletic performance and rehabilitation centre. “The role entails strategic thinking, visioning, marketing, promoting, branding, building a sense of community within the training facility and ‘managing’ a team of… -
Free management consulting — only on today’s Office Hours!
6 Feb 2012 | 4:04 amIf you have any interest in picking the brain of one of the top management thinkers of our times — and thereby cadge thousands of bucks in free consulting — tune in to Office Hours today at 2pm, EST. Our guest will be Gary Hamel. He’s the originator (with CK Prahalad) of the idea of core competencies, a visiting professor at the London Business School, the most reprinted writer in the history of the Harvard Business Review, founder of the Management Innovation eXchange, and pioneer in the quest for “moonshots for management.” He’s also the author of What… -
Emotionally intelligent signage and Louis C.K.
30 Jan 2012 | 6:51 amComedian Louis C.K. garnered a lot of press — and made a ton of money — last month when he disintermediated the major television networks and released his latest special as a $5 download on his web site. Less well known is that the funny man (if you haven’t seen this bit, you need to) used emotionally intelligent signage to discourage fans from ripping off his intellectual property and distributing it for free. It seems to have worked. (HT: The great Kevin Kelly, who pointed this out to me.) -
State of the Union address as an eye exam chart
25 Jan 2012 | 7:48 amCan a Presidential speech ever be a work of art? Not usually. But R. Luke Dubois is doing his best. As part of the “Mulitplicity” exhibit now showing at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which I had a chance to see last weekend, Dubois reconfigured all the State of the Union addresses in an interesting way. In a series of prints called “Hindsight is always 20/20,” he’s taken the words of each speech, noted their frequency, and rendered them as a Snellen eye exam chart – with a President’s most-used words in large type near the top and his less-used words in… -
5 great guests on our new season of Office Hours
24 Jan 2012 | 5:08 amGood news, folks. Office Hours is back for a new season! The madness begins this Friday, January 27, at 11am, EST, when our guest will be Susan Cain, author of the hot new book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. (That’s her on the right.) For those of you who’ve missed the biggest cultural phenomenon since Cop Rock, Office Hours is our radio-ish program, now available around the world on iTunes, in which I and a special guest open up the phone lines for an hour to take your questions about work, life, business, education, and anything…
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chrisbrogan.com
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Throw Away the Maps
6 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amPeople judge us by the path they’ve seen us walk before. They can’t anticipate our future steps. We, ourselves, look to how things have been, what seems to be the lay of the land, without realizing that the maps are not the territory. Want to succeed at work? Then don’t try to do your job. Instead, work towards something larger, more meaningful, and something that blends your convictions internally with your best ability to help others externally. Want to create something new? Then throw away the old, or maybe join two disparate old things together into something new. The… -
The Next Social Networks
5 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amThe rage in social networks right now is Pinterest, partly because it’s probably the first social network that has a much higher adoption rate by females than males, and partly because it’s an interesting concept: somewhere between visual social bookmarking and scrapbooking. What also might not be immediately obvious is that it’s just “easier” to interact there. In that way, Pinterest has something in common with Instagram, which is community around photos. What I’m interested in, though, is Gentlemint, which I keep calling “Pinterest for… -
Learn From Adele – Build Your Platform
3 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amJacq and I just watched Adele Live At The Royal Albert Hall (amazon affiliate link), and though every song was just wonderfully done, I found myself fascinated by what Adele was doing in between each song. Because even though most people would be interested in hearing her belt out her amazing repertoire of hits, what I took away from the performance was Adele’s real magical ability: the ability to resonate with her audience. What Adele Could Teach You About Impact I’m writing something about this right now for my upcoming book with Julien Smith, but I had to share some of the… -
Rob Gokee is a Musical Wizard
2 Feb 2012 | 8:05 amI had such a great experience working with award winning musical composer Rob Gokee. We did some musical work together, and the process was so amazing. Rob helped me create my theme song for Shhh! The Secret Show. So anyhow, he and I sat down to do an interview, and it’s a bit long, but it’s totally worth it. We talk about what collaboration feels like at a distance, what it takes to get music like this made for your own show, and a lot more. Rob’s a hero to me, and has been part of the community for a while. I was so fortunate to have worked with him. Can’t see the… -
Build Your Platform – Start
30 Jan 2012 | 1:30 amThe following is part ONE of a series called Build Your Platform. If you find it interesting, please consider subscribing for free to get the rest of the series. This post is long. You might want to bookmark it for later. The age of social media oversaturation is upon us. People are declaring Twitter bankruptcy to go along with their email bankruptcy. They cite not wanting to start on yet another social network as their reason for not getting more involved with Google+. And just as soon as you start getting into Pinterest, you hear about Path, but wait: there’s Gentlemint, which is…
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Not Running a Hospital
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When is a comparison not a comparison?
8 Feb 2012 | 1:56 pmI guess we shouldn't be surprised when a website called "Hospital Compare" chooses to adopt a methodology that presents comparisons, but leaves us with less-than-useful information. According to Modern Healthcare:The CMS' Hospital Compare website has been updated with facility-specific data on central line-associated bloodstream infections, a move the agency says will “hold hospitals accountable for bringing down these rates, saving thousands of lives and millions of dollars.Here is the approach used by CMS:The Central Line Associated Blood Stream Infections (CLABSI) Score is reported… -
WIHI on Better Care and Lower Costs
8 Feb 2012 | 12:00 pmThe Social Imperative to Demonstrate That Better Care = Lower Costs February 9, 2012, 2:00 - 3:00 PM Eastern Time Guests:Donald Berwick, MD, MPP, Former Administrator, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; Former President and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Gerard M. Shea, Assistant to the President for External Affairs, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)Imagine this. You’re driving or walking or maybe even bicycling by your local hospital and you notice a big sign over the entrance that you’ve never seen before. -
Cullen and friends helped show the way
8 Feb 2012 | 6:04 amPutting aside my occasionally snarky attitude about its slow-to-innovate health care market, one of the pleasures of living in Boston is casually running into some of the intellectual greats in the field. These are extremely well-intentioned and thoughtful people who have done some of the seminal work in health care quality improvement.One such person is David Cullen, whom I ran into at our dentist's office. (I trust it is not a HIPAA violation here to report that he was smiling as he left!) David, a former anesthesiologist at MGH, participated in a very important systems… -
Digging one's self into a Texas-sized hole
7 Feb 2012 | 7:28 pmIt has been some time since I have provided an update about the sad situation at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. You may recall that after a hospital-wide inspection last summer, CMS issued a decision that Parkland no longer qualified for Medicare funding. To stay open, an understanding was reached that the hospital would engage an external consultant to conduct an objective safety review.As reported in the Dallas Morning News: Parkland spent nearly $7 million hiring New York-based Alvarez & Marsal Healthcare Industry Group.Parkland’s interim chief executive, Dr. -
Huskies are top dogs in entrepreneurship
7 Feb 2012 | 7:22 amMore and more colleges and universities are promoting themselves as hotbeds of entrepreneurship, creating courses and even degree programs in this field. I think one measure of the fertility of a college campus for this discipline is the extent to which the students take it upon themselves to create a club to support potential and budding entrepreneurs in their midst.In that regard, I want to pay tribute to one local entrepreneurship club, at a university that might surprise some of you who immediately think of the Ivy Leagues or high technology schools. In a recent ranking by…
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Health Blog
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Are Doctors Always Honest With Patients?
8 Feb 2012 | 1:12 pmAccording to the Charter on Medical Professionalism, physicians are supposed to be honest with their patients. So does that always happen? In a word: no. A survey of 1,891 doctors published in the journal Health Affairs finds a significant percentage have been less than completely forthright with patients in the past year, including avoiding disclosure of medical errors and giving a too-rosy prognosis. The survey, which had a response rate of about 64%, included some questions about general attitudes. The vast majority of doctors completely agreed with the notion that confidential health… -
Live Chat: Is Nagging Harming Your Relationships?
8 Feb 2012 | 10:36 amLaugh all you want to about the stereotype of the nagging spouse, but Bonds columnist Elizabeth Bernstein says nagging can cause serious damage in marriages – on the scale of infidelity or financial fights. Readers responded to the column with hundreds of opinions and stories about how toxic communication was impacting their relationships. Now, Elizabeth will take your questions and comments about nagging in a live chat at 12 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 9, moderated by Personal Journal news editor Laura Bird. Ask your questions now. -
Teen Pregnancy, Birth, Abortion Rates Drop: Report
8 Feb 2012 | 9:25 amA star of MTV’s reality show “Teen Mom” with her son in footage from 2009. It seems like every time we turn on MTV we see teenage moms, thanks to the success of the network’s “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom” shows. Outside of reality TV, however, the teenage pregnancy rate has actually dropped dramatically from its highs; it fell to a nearly 40-year-low in 2008, according to a new report. Stats from the Guttmacher Institute show that the pregnancy rate among teens aged 15-19 that year fell to about 7%, or 67.8 pregnancies per 1,000 women in that… -
As Trans Fats Left Food Supply, Levels in the Body Dropped
8 Feb 2012 | 5:57 amPut down those doughnuts and french fries. Trans fat bans may just work. That’s what a research letter published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests. Levels of the four major trans fatty acids in white adult Americans fell 58% from 2000 to 2009, according to the research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was a decade during which public criticism and government regulation led to the removal of mountains of trans fats from the food supply. The sharp decrease “may lead to a decrease in risk for cardiovascular disease in… -
A.M. Vitals: Room For Compromise on Contraception Coverage?
8 Feb 2012 | 5:45 amContraception Compromise?: The Obama administration is looking for possible compromises on a policy that requires most religious employers to offer health plans that cover the cost of contraception for their workers, the WSJ reports, citing people familiar with the discussions. One possible model: Hawaii, where employees of religious organizations can enroll in a lower-premium plan and pay the insurer directly for additional contraception coverage if they want it. Working on a Doc Fix: In an exercise that has become all-too-familiar, Congress is scrambling to figure out how to prevent a 27%…
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Jay Parkinson + MD + MPH = a doctor in NYC
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Why we started Sherpaa
7 Feb 2012 | 7:35 amsherpaa: If our healthcare industry functioned like a true System, Sherpaa would be irrelevant. The definition of a system is: A set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network. Healthcare in America doesn’t work together. And it is disconnected, not interconnected. There have been many attempts to make health(care) simple. There’s ZocDoc doing wonderful things with making appointments with doctors online. There’s WebMD publishing information to the world that was once only available to doctors. There’s Dr. Cranquis using tumblr as a well-trained,… -
I’m very excited to announce that we’ve officially...
6 Feb 2012 | 1:52 pmI’m very excited to announce that we’ve officially launched Sherpaa. Who it’s for: Currently it’s for tumblr’s employees. In the near future, we’ll be signing up other NYC-based companies. Why: When you’re sick or hurt, figuring out exactly who and what you need and when you need it is difficult. You need an accessible, friendly doctor you can call and email 24/7 who will either solve the problem right then and there or guide you to the highest quality, health professionals with the best personalities who will provide exactly the care you need. Our wonderful friends at tumblr… -
Top five regrets of the dying
6 Feb 2012 | 11:26 amnevver: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. I wish that I had let myself be happier. more Also, read The Life Reports. -
For the latest episode of ReCivilization on CBC, I’m...
6 Feb 2012 | 7:41 amFor the latest episode of ReCivilization on CBC, I’m interviewed by Don Tapscott about disrupting healthcare. Don is one of my favorite authors who wrote: Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World Don flew down from Toronto a few months back and interviewed me in my backyard over a cup of tea. My part starts around 30 minutes in, but it’s a good listen throughout. -
Just bought this photograph. It’s truly amazing. From the...
4 Feb 2012 | 3:42 pmJust bought this photograph. It’s truly amazing. From the Brooklyn Navy Yard Hospital in 1910.
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Dr. Wes
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Our Conflicted Conflicts
8 Feb 2012 | 11:30 amThis week's Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a lengthy conflict of interest correction by Eugene Braunwald, editor of one of our iconic textbooks of cardiology and author of over 1000 peer-reviewed cardiovascular publications:To the Editor: It has been brought to my attention that there were differences in my financial disclosures in a number of articles recently -
Some Trivia to Ponder
7 Feb 2012 | 4:38 amWhat does this graph represent? Hint: you were probably on it. -Wes -
The Politics of Measuring Outcomes
6 Feb 2012 | 4:52 amIt's February, and with February comes Valentine's Day, and with Valentine's Day, comes Heart Month, and with Heart Month, comes the department of Health and Human Services press release promising a million lives saved if we just eat right, stop smoking, and have our free blood pressure and cholesterol checks. We are told this bold new initiative will be working to save a million lives. After -
Tomorrow is National Wear Red Day!
2 Feb 2012 | 3:01 pmIt's all about heart disease for the month of February and to commemorate the occassion the American Heart Association has designated tomorrow as "National Wear Red Day!" As most of you know, I LOVE "Go Red" day and all its' marketing glitz that targets women (never mind that more men die of heart disease than women). It's not easy to find a politically-correct cause to piggy-back upon to sell -
EKG Du Jour #25 - The Exercise Enthusiast - Explained
1 Feb 2012 | 8:38 amSorry about the delay, but unlike most of the EKG Du Jour series of EKG's, I elected to make a separate post to explain the interesting tracings that first appeared here. As a refresher, the original 12-lead rhythm strip obtained on this healthy, asymptomatic individual looked like this when he presented for evaluation of two near syncopal spells: Click image to enlargeThe first two beats do
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Uploads by username: "JNJhealth"
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Johnson & Johnson Perspectives on Partnership to Eliminate or Control Neglected Tropical Diseases
6 Feb 2012 | 12:13 pmJohnson & Johnson Perspectives on Partnership to Eliminate or Control Neglected Tropical Diseases Paul Stoffels, Worldwide Chairman, Pharmaceuticals at Johnson & Johnson, gives his perspective on the Company joining 12 other pharmaceutical companies, the World Health Organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the US and UK governments, The World Bank, and endemic countries to announce a new, unprecedented collaborative effort to control or eliminate 10 Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) by the year 2020. From: JNJhealth Views: 57 1 ratings Time: 02:12 More in People &… -
Electric Cars; Tour de Cure - diabetes; Workout Tips, ennTV #6, 1 of 4
31 Jan 2012 | 10:05 amElectric Cars; Tour de Cure - diabetes; Workout Tips, ennTV #6, 1 of 4 Electric cars from Janssen, Belgium; J&J cycling teams #1 at American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure event; circuit training tips from Chris Jordan. Episode #6 of Johnson & Johnson ennTV is all about travel! Employees of the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies can learn more about electric cars to save energy and reduce the carbon footprint at www.janssen.jnj.com and searching for Janssen Drives Electric. To learn more about the American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure or support the Johnson &… -
Electric cars at Janssen, Belgium. ennTV #6, 2 of 4
30 Jan 2012 | 6:40 amElectric cars at Janssen, Belgium. ennTV #6, 2 of 4 Janssen Pharmaceutica NV in Beerse, Belgium, to reduce the carbon footprint and Carbon Dioxide emissions with a new fleet of sustainable Citroen electric cars. Environmental Health & Safety Senior Manager Bart DeWulf shows off stylish, zero emission vehicles as part of ongoing sustainability initiatives across the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies. Employees of the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies can learn more electric cars and our sustainability programs at www.janssen.jnj.com and searching for Janssen Drives… -
J&J cycling rides for cure for diabetes in Tour de Cure, ennTV #6, 4 of 4
27 Jan 2012 | 7:29 amJ&J cycling rides for cure for diabetes in Tour de Cure, ennTV #6, 4 of 4 The 2011 Johnson & Johnson cycling teams were #1 in funds raised for the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure event. LifeScan employees share their perspective on cycling for a cause that directly impacts the patients they serve as part of our diabetes care business. To learn more about the American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure or support the Johnson & Johnson cycling team, visit www.Tour.diabetes.org. Visit bit.ly to watch and share more videos on the ennTV playlist. From: JNJhealth Views:… -
Quick Circuit-Training and Workout Tips for on the Go, ennTV #6, 3 of 4
27 Jan 2012 | 7:21 amQuick Circuit-Training and Workout Tips for on the Go, ennTV #6, 3 of 4 Chris Jordan, Director of Fitness at the Human Performance, Institute, Inc. a Johnson & Johnson Company and part of our Wellness & Prevention Business, shares tips for an effective circuit training routine that incorporates cardio and resistance and can be performed anytime and anywhere. Visit bit.ly to watch and share more videos on the ennTV playlist. From: JNJhealth Views: 228 0 ratings Time: 01:47 More in People & Blogs
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KevinMD.com
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Why we should eliminate the diagnosis of ADHD
8 Feb 2012 | 4:00 pmI’m reluctant to write a post about ADHD. It just seems like treacherous ground. Judging by comments I’ve read online and in magazines, and my own personal experience, expressing an opinion about this diagnosis—or just about anything in child psychiatry—will be met with criticism from one side or another. But after reading L. Alan Sroufe’s article (“Ritalin Gone Wild”) in the New York Times, I feel compelled to write.Read the rest of Why we should eliminate the diagnosis of ADHD on KevinMD.com.Category: Conditions | Tags: Medications, Psychiatry | No comment -
Doctors lobby Congress to repeal the SGR
8 Feb 2012 | 12:00 pmOne of the things that I like most about my job is engaging with ACP’s physician leadership—the internal medicine doctors who dedicate enormous amounts of time, at great personal sacrifice, to represent the interests of our members and their patients.One of the things that I like least is when an ACP member (or non-member physician) caustically dismisses their efforts, usually because they disagree with some aspects of ACP policy. It is one thing to disagree with ACP’s policies and priorities or to be frustrated with the pace of change, but it is another thing altogether to label your… -
The foundation of medicine is care
8 Feb 2012 | 8:00 amI recently wrote that “diagnosis is job number one.” In sports, there are times when two teams share the number one position. Each team competes to make it to the championship; and, ultimately, one team has to lose its top ranking.In medicine, care and diagnosis share the number one spot, working together toward a common goal: to promote health. Some would say that, without care, the diagnosis is worthless. Certainly, a careless approach to medicine is fraught with problems.Read the rest of The foundation of medicine is care on KevinMD.com.Category: Physician | Tags:… -
Patients in the waiting room do not know why doctors are running late
8 Feb 2012 | 4:00 amI hate running late. I prefer to arrive five minutes early for any meeting. I was that compulsive student who always turned in papers before they were due. Now I turn in conference abstracts, grant applications, and even poetry contest submissions, well before their deadlines. Unfortunately, timing is not always in my control.I particularly hate running late in clinic. I want to see all my patients on time. It is never my intention to keep people waiting. But all it takes is one patient with more complexity than can fit into their scheduled appointment, and the entire day is… -
Top stories in health and medicine this morning, February 8, 2012
8 Feb 2012 | 2:00 amThis series is brought to you by MedPage Today.1. Aspirin, Plavix Not Good Stroke Prevention Combo. Combining clopidogrel (Plavix) with aspirin did not prevent recurrent stroke deep in the brain, and even increased the risk of bleeding and death.2. Wii Helps Arms, Heart in Stroke Patients. A short but intense Wii-based program not only improved physical function in stroke patients, but added a beneficial cardiovascular challenge.3. Guideline: Diabetes Treatment Should Start with Metformin. Metformin should be the first drug of choice in oral therapy for type 2 diabetics who don’t…
