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Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Reporting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reporting. Show all posts

Monday, September 7, 2015

How to Know Whether to Believe a Health Study

By Austin Frakt
The New York Times - The Upshot
Originally posted on August 17, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

Unfortunately, there’s no substitute for careful examination of studies by experts. Yet, if you’re not an expert, you can do a few simple things to become a more savvy consumer of research. First, if the study examined the effects of a therapy only on animals or in a test tube, we have very limited insight into how it will actually work in humans. You should take any claims about effects on people with more than a grain of salt. Next, for studies involving humans, ask yourself: What method did the researchers use? How similar am I to the people it examined?

Sure, there are many other important questions to ask about a study — for instance, did it examine harms as well as benefits? But just assessing the basis for what researchers call “causal claims” — X leads to or causes Y — and how similar you are to study subjects will go a long way toward unlocking its credibility and relevance to you.

The entire article is here.

Monday, September 5, 2011

OCR Data Breach Tally Passes a Milestone

Dom Nicastro for HealthLeaders Media

Covered entities have reported breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) nearly once every other day since the HIPAA privacy and security enforcer began posting the information 18 months ago.

The list, posted on the OCR breach notification website, hit the 300 mark this week. OCR went live with the site in February 2010, recording breaches that date back to September of 2009.

That's about 13 breaches per month dating back to the fall of 2009.

The website is part of the breach notification interim final rule, in effect since September 2009. OCR withdrew the rule a little more than one year ago from the hands of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which reviews rules for government agencies. OCR wanted more time to pursue changes to the rule.

The rest of the story can be read here.