July 2006 Archive
There’s nothing I hate more than a sensational media circus surrounding a sensitive medical ethics issue — and that’s exactly what ensued when New Orleans police arrested a doctor and two nurses recently for allegedly euthanizing chronically ill patients during Hurricane Katrina.
Many of the patients left behind during the evacuation of New Orleans were elderly and in fragile health; they were stuck in hospitals for the wrong reasons. This tragic situation might have ended differently if Memorial Medical’s ICU had not been full of patients who should not have been there.
Unlike the deaths in New Orleans, the release of The Dartmouth Atlas Project’s “The Care of Patients with Severe Chronic Illness: A Report on the Medicare Program” generated very little media attention. Yet the report, released in May, provides potentially incendiary information about some of the most contentious issues in the US healthcare system: Medicare spending and the management of chronic illnesses and end-of-life care.
The Dartmouth Atlas Project analyzes health care costs across geographic areas by interpreting the information in gigantic healthcare information databases. It is an undertaking of the Center for Evaluative Clinical Sciences at Dartmouth Medical School, and is funded by grants from the foundations connected with some biggies in the world of health insurance: WellPoint, Aetna, and UnitedHealth Group. Which is an interesting fact to keep in mind while you digest the following information.
According to the report (pdf file), almost a third of Medicare expenditures for the treatment of the chronically ill is unnecessary. The report examined the medical records of some 5 million Medicare enrollees who died between 2000 and 2003 (and who had at least one chronic illness).
The study’s principal investigator, John E. Wennberg, M.D., M.P.H., says, “The majority of acute care hospitals are applying their standard forms of ‘rescue medicine’ to people who are in advanced stages of diseases that can’t be cured. Patients don’t benefit - they can’t be rescued - and the costs of such care are very high, both in dollars spent and in providing care that the majority of chronically ill patients might not want, such as admissions to intensive care and being sent to specialist after specialist.”
The Dartmouth Atlas study practically demands that doctors, hospitals, administrators, and health insurance providers rethink treatment strategies for people with chronic illnesses nearing the end of their lives. I can’t help but think that some of the tragic deaths in New Orleans could have been avoided had the patients in question not been in the hospital wasting taxpayer dollars in the first place.
And in related news, the embattled Tenet Healthcare is selling Memorial Medical and two other New Orleans-area hospitals to Ochsner Health System.
The heat wave sweeping across the country for the last two weeks has sent many scurrying like roaches out of the light and into the cool confines of the great indoors. Not all have found respite, though. New York’s Queens Borough suffered from a massive blackout lasting at least a week. Cities up and down California baked to a crisp and went dark. Half a million St. Louis residents lost power as well.
For quite a few businesses, however, the rising mercury means dollar signs. Lots of dollar signs.
Makers of emergency generators are the perennial big winners in the heat wave game. General Electric takes the crown in this arena, but you can also expect to see the likes of Caterpillar, GET Group, Suzuki Motor Corporation, and Hyundai Heavy Industries reaping similar benefits.
Contractors involved in maintaining the country’s infrastructure are in for a robust summer as well. Bechtel, Fluor, and Jacobs Engineering Group are just three heavy hitters that come to mind, each regularly assisting in bulking up US transportation, utility, and similar infrastructure.
Meanwhile, when you’re cooling off in front of your generator, why not cool the gullet as well? Ben & Jerry’s is one of many ice-cream makers enjoying hot sales. Worried you won’t sweat off the calories? Opt for a bottle of Evian instead.
Speaking of water, everyone’s trying to conserve it. Producers such as Hancor are poised to help businesses and residents save a few dollars with a variety of fittings, inserts, and pipes that improve water conservation efforts.
It’s been a scorcher in the UK too. London’s Daily Telegraph asked a few fund managers last week who would be benefiting from the high temperatures:
- Balfour Beatty and Carillion, contractors extraordinaire, both of which handle major infrastructure projects such as sewer systems;
- Utility giants Drax Power and International Power; and my personal favorite:
- Pubs. Thousands of hot and thirsty denizens will be toasting the great English destination this summer in such popular establishments as Punch Taverns and Wolverhampton & Dudley.
I’m not sure where writing fits in to this whole summertime money-making scheme, but when there’s a will and 100-degree temperatures, there’s a way.
Studies have found that social interaction with real, live humans is important. (Yes, there are studies. Google it.) But many moons ago, local was replaced by corporate. Self-scanning checkout stations replaced Susie, the girl who once asked about your family while she bagged your groceries. (Since I’m on the topic of the self-serve checkout: it works by matching the item scanned with the weight on the scale. Get with it people!)
As big business changes the way we procure goods in the neighborhood, it’s no wonder that people opt for the point-and-click approach – especially when it comes to entertainment.
A new episode in the saga of Internet-enhanced life includes news that consumers can now download and burn movies to DVD. Last week, CinemaNow announced that it launched its “breakthrough” service only days after Movielink said it has partnered with Sonic Solutions to develop a similar system. The companies, both established with support from major movie distributors like Sony, Paramount, Universal Studios, and Warner Bros., provided just enough low-grade video content to keep themselves on the map. Users couldn’t download movies, but rather gather the family around the old PC for an evening of pixilated flicks from last season’s new release section.
Meanwhile, companies like BitTorrent, YouTube, and Guba have acquired swarms of users – enough to fuel the race to improve video distribution technologies. (I won’t even mention that little product called iTunes.) The result: The same companies that big business snubbed for being too kiddy-driven now hold the key to the technology (and traffic) needed to make video downloads a profitable segment in big business’ balance sheets.
The true news in all of this is not that you can now spend an eternity downloading a garbled digital copy of Barbershop 2, but that you can order sneak peeks of premier episodes from NBC at Netflix; email the video for Internet Killed the Video Star to your sister; and load the new Gnarls Barkley album to your iPod – all in a less time than it would take you to finish off a good laugh at big business’ digital blunders.
I was browsing through American Way (American Airlines’ inflight magazine) the other day. You know the type of publication – chock full of stories touting travel destinations and high-tech toys for grownups. Well, right there on its pages, I ran into an item that dredged up memories strong enough to (almost literally) smell: Play-Doh turns 50 this year. 
Even though I certainly had my day with the Hasbro classic (and the bane of carpet-loving moms everywhere), what I remember most about Play-Doh is this: When I was younger and much, much poorer, I was fretting over what I could afford to buy my three-year-old son (who’s 15 this year) for a Christmas gift. As luck would have it, I hit a yard sale and struck a bonanza – a gigantic box of Play-Doh molding and extruding toys for five bucks.
All I had to supply was Play-Doh, which might’ve set me back another $3. Honest, that was one of the best gifts he ever got. We played with that stuff for YEARS, and I had the destroyed rec room carpet to prove it.
A few classic toys (like Play-Doh) are pretty much what you and I remember. Others survived only after undergoing such drastic changes as to be almost unrecognizable. (Twister, which turns 40 this year, is issued in a classic version, as well as in updated DVD and CD versions. Hasbro brought back its wood Tinkertoys after foisting all-plastic ones upon my son and other kids of the 1990s; these bore faint resemblance to the Tinkertoys my brothers and I played with – and threw at one another – when we were children.)
At any rate, toys have an interesting place in the world of business and entertainment these days. I was at the theater the other day waiting for the start of the latest in the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. (Remember, these fantastically successful movies and all their related merchandise are based on a Disney theme-park ride that opened in the 1960s!) Suddenly the screen was lit with the preview for a live-action Transformers movie (coming in 2007 and produced by Steven Spielberg for DreamWorks SKG), based on the popular animated TV show, comic books, and Hasbro toys that were launched in the 1980s. (They also spawned a full-length animated movie in 1986.)
In fact, the Transformers – along with Mattel’s Masters of the Universe (aka He-Man) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (whose action figures are made by Playmates) – were among the earliest and most successful intrinsic pairings of entertainment and toy marketing. (Time in 1985 credited Strawberry Shortcake – a product of Namco Bandai — as being the very first to use this marketing strategy successfully.) Sometimes the chicken-or-egg question was totally appropriate: The cartoon shows were created as a means to sell action figures. Or was it the other way around?
The trend had fully taken root by the 1990s, when the Power Rangers (now owned by Disney, but with ties to Namco Bandai) morphed their way into mighty marketing history.
If you’re thinking all of this is child’s play, think again. The Transformers – those Autobots (Hooray, Optimus Prime!) and Decepticons (Boo, Megatron!) — that so bewitched kids in the ‘80s are credited with helping Hasbro to its first $1 billion sales year.
Like most children of my generation, I left the theater after seeing Superman in 1978 with the entirely realistic ambition to one day become Superman. All I had to do was figure out how to get those fantastic powers. But my parents, with their irrational rules, refused to let me jump from high countertops and even the roof to test my flying ability. A child’s dream was heartlessly crushed.
I eventually grew up (well, that’s debatable to some) and let Superman go. Superman also eventually let me go by having the nerve to be in movies that increasingly sucked (the less said about Superman III and the unforgivable turd that was Superman IV, the better). As a result, the franchise went into hibernation for 20 years and Batman and Marvel ’s universe of heroes took over the silver screen.
To say that I was excited about Warner Bros.‘ Superman Returns is a big understatement. I knew X-Men mastermind Bryan Singer could rescue the franchise, much as last year’s awesome Batman Begins saved that franchise from the hackery of Joel Schumacher.
So why isn’t it a hit? As of this writing, it’s made $178 million in the US. While not at all shabby in real people money, with a budget near $200 million plus another $40 million for marketing, Warner has no choice but to label it a disappointment. Its poor performance can’t be because the public doesn’t like comic book movies, just look at Spider-Man 2 and Batman Begins - both monster hits, not to mention that they’re good movies. (And to clarify, Superman Returns is a very good flick.) Even not so great entries like X-Men: The Last Stand and Fantastic Four make piles of cash.
So the problem must be with Superman himself. Many people have told me over the years, “I just don’t care much for Superman.” Reasons for this run the gamut from, “He’s boring,” to, “He’s too much of Boy Scout.” You name it. Sure, Superman’s not 14 personalities shy of Sybil in a cowl like Batman, but boring? With those powers? Hell no. Aside from the crime fighting uses, their practical applications alone would be far from dull. You could fly yourself across the country rather than enduring the manners-deficient tot kicking the back of your airline seat for six hours. Super frozen breath? I live in scorching Texas, I’d cover the whole damn place with ice every day of the hellish, six-month-long summer. (Don’t worry, I’d keep plenty of Super Mentos on hand). X-ray vision? The possibilities are endless for that one, all dependent on your level of perviness.
Too much of a Boy Scout? Hardly. After knocking red boots with Lois Lane, he’s got an illegitimate kid in this new movie, and that’s about as far as you can get from a Boy Scout.
After all the hyper-patriotic talk that’s been slung around this decade by both the media and the government, I figured America would love a new move about the ultimate icon who fights for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, but I guess not. I can only hope that when foreign box office gross ($77 million so far) and DVD sales are factored in, both increasingly important to Hollywood profits, Warner Bros. will let Superman fly into another installment. Otherwise, I’m gonna have to start testing those flying powers again, assuming my wife lets me get on the roof.