Wikipedia for Medicine

MedPedia is a new project similar to Wikipedia but for medicine. It will act as an online collaborative medical encyclopedia available to the general public. Unlike Wikipedia, content editors and creators are required to have an MD or a PhD. Organizations funding MedPedia include some well-known acronyms: CDC, NIH, and FDA. One question remains: will…

Surprising insights from the social sciences

What have my fellow brethren of social scientists discovered lately? The Boston Globe summaries some interesting findings such as: Women find men with stubble more attractive than those who are clean shaven or have significant amounts of facial hair. I guess women must think Brett Favre is a sexy dude…whether or not he is retired.…

Book Review: Undercover

In 2006, Columbia/HCA was forced to return $1.7 billion to the federal government for defrauding Medicare. How was the federal government able to amass such strong evidence against HCA in order to win such a large settlement? The answer to the question is revealed in a book called Undercover by John W. Schilling. The book…

Network Structure and the Spread of Disease

Contagious disease are spread (generally) when one person comes in contact with another. Thus, the number of links in a network (the number of connections one has) will go a long way to determining how fast diseases are spread. One question which needs to be answered is whether a hub-and-spoke network or a more diffused…

Insurers to cover retail clinic visits

The Boston Globe reports that some of Massachusetts largest insurers are beginning to cover medical visits made at retail clinics at CVS and Walgreens drug stores.  Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Minnesota is waiving copays for visits to retail clinics.  The American Association of Family Physicians (AAFP) is not happy about this. Carpe Diem says the…

Is the web narrowing scientists’ expertise?

As an academic researcher, using the web has made my life significantly easier.  I can access millions of articles from academic journals in the click of a button.  Sites such as JStor and ScienceDirect have hundreds of journals located in the same place for easy use.  With so much more information online, I am able…

Medicare Part D data available

For researchers interested in studying the Medicare prescription drug benefit, CMS has claims data for Medicare Part D.  Academy Health also has a useful powerpoint presentation giving some more information regarding Medicare Part D and what information is available as part of the CMS Medicare Part D claims data.