2 hospitals that have adopted virtualisation – case studies via ReadWriteWeb, May 2011
Harvard Study: Computers don’t save hospitals – Computer World, Nov 2009
The recently released study evaluated data on 4,000 hospitals in the U.S over a four-year period and found that the immense cost of installing and running hospital IT systems is greater than any expected cost savings. And much of the software being written for use in clinics is aimed at administrators, not doctors, nurses and lab workers.
The problem “is mainly that computer systems are built for the accountants and managers and not built to help doctors, nurses and patients,” the report’s lead author, Dr. David Himmelstein, said in an interview with Computerworld.
Himmelstein, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, said that in its current state, hospital computing might modestly improve the quality of health care processes, but it does not reduce overall administrative costs. … “And for doctors, generally, it increases time they spend [inputting data].”
Placebos are getting more effective – Wired, Aug 2009
Many test subjects treated with the medication felt their hopelessness and anxiety lift. But so did nearly the same number who took a placebo… It’s not only trials of new drugs that are crossing the futility boundary. Some products that have been on the market for decades, like Prozac, are faltering in more recent follow-up tests.
The Fable of the Dragon Tyrant -Nick Bostrom, Journal of Medical Ethics, 2005
In the fable, people’s expectations adapted to the existence of the dragon, to the extent that many became unable to perceive its badness. Aging, too, has become a mere “fact of life” – despite being the principal cause of an unfathomable amount of human suffering and death. People reasoned that it would never become possible to kill the dragon because all attempts had failed in the past. They failed to take into account accelerated technological progress. Is a similar mistake leading us to underestimate the chances of a cure for aging?
Excellent story explaining why it is not OK to just accept the aging process cannot be changed.
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