Rates of referral to a cardiologist, which markedly improves cardiovascular outcomes, differ significantly based on nonclinical patient characteristics.
Those who survived Hurricanes Katrina and Rita faced homelessness and physical and mental health problems that created ethical dilemmas for physicians.
Fabian von Knoch, MD, Anthony Marchie, MD, MPhil, and Henrik Malchau, MD, PhD
An argument that national joint registries have improved outcomes for arthroplasty patients because they track device performance, reduce revision surgeries, and promote evidence-based surgery.
Increased use of emergency departments for primary care puts undue burden on EDs; however, EMTALA obligates EDs to provide care to patients regardless of their ability to pay.
A bioethicist argues that two journal articles about quality of life-adjusted years research oversimplifies the issue and do not take into consideration people's abilities to adapt to disability and disease.
A health economics professor believes more research is needed on quality of life-adjusted years to explore the way we describe health states, the elicitation of patient values, and how to develop methods for obtaining informed general population preferences.
Elly A. Stolk, MSc and Floortje E. van Nooten, MSc
Two medical technology researchers argue that patients' own valuations of their health states may result in devaluation of interventions that can help them.