Tag: statistics
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Crowdsourcing Can Aid Health Research, but Guidelines Needed
Researchers from the medical and business schools at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia evaluated crowdsourcing as a research tool in health care, and found it has potential to improve quality and lower costs of studies, but ground rules are needed for the technique. Findings from the team led by Penn emergency medicine professor Raina Merchant…
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Health Records Exchanges Grow, but Sustainability a Question
Researchers at University of Michigan, Harvard University, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston found larger numbers of U.S. hospitals and doctors taking part in electronic health records exchanges — services that store patient records for access as needed by different health care providers — but their funding after this year remains in doubt. The…
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Intensive Care Units in U.K. Cut Blood Infection Rates
Intensive care units at hospitals in England sharply cut their rates of serious blood stream infections over a two-year period, according to researchers at University of Leicester and University of Birmingham in the U.K. The latest results were reported last week in the journal Implementation Science, following up on an evaluation of an infection-reduction program…
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Study: Walking and Talking with Mobile Phone Don’t Mix
Urban planning researchers at Ohio State University in Columbus found more than 1,500 pedestrians using mobile phones were treated in emergency rooms in 2010, with the number of inuries rising sharply since 2004. Jack Nasar, a professor in Ohio State’s architecture school, and former graduate student Derek Troyer published their findings in the August 2013…
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Fatigue Likely Affecting MLB Players’ Batting Performance
Neurologists and statisticians at Vanderbilt University in Nashville tested a statistical model for the 2012 season that predicted major league baseball (MLB) players’ batting judgment degrades over the course of the long season. The team led by Scott Kutscher, neurology professor at Vanderbilt, will present its findings next week at the annual meeting of the…
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Simplified Medicare Could Save Money, Improve Senior Health
Public health researchers found combining into one program Medicare’s separate hospital, doctor, and drug plans with supplemental insurance could save $180 billion over a decade while improving care for older Americans. The study, led by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health professor Karen Davis and conducted for the Commonwealth Fund, appears in the May 2013 issue…
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Synthetic Biology Census Shows Company Growth, Consolidation
A census of organizations, agencies, and companies involved in synthetic biology shows rapid growth of the field in the past four years, but also some retrenchment, particularly in the private sector. The study was conducted by the Synthetic Biology Project, an initiative of Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. The Wilson Center…
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Emergency Care Costs Likely Higher than Current Estimates
An analysis of emergency care costs in the U.S. suggests the actual price tag for visiting hospital emergency rooms may be more than earlier thought. A study by economist turned emergency room physician Michael Lee at Brown University, with colleagues from Brown and Harvard Medical School, appears online in Friday’s issue of the journal Annals…
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University, Resorts Partner on Sun Safety Campaign
Researchers at San Diego State University are partnering with vacation resorts in the U.S. and Canada to encourage their guests to practice smart sun protection. The San Diego team is headed by health communications professor Peter Andersen and funded by National Institutes of Health. “More than two million new cases of skin cancer are reported…
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One in Five Seniors Found Taking High Risk Medications
A study by public health researchers at Brown University in Providence finds about one in five older citizens in the U.S. are taking medications considered potentially harmful to people in that age group. Danya Qato, a practicing pharmacist and doctoral candidate, with Amal Trivedi, a general internist and health services researcher at Brown, published their…