The easiest way to increase the supply of physicians would be to increase Medicare funding for residency programs. We already have a surplus of smart and good people who would love to become doctors. Every year some of them graduate from medical school with an MD/DO degree but are unable to practice medicine because they don't get matched to a residency slot (some of them do get matched the following year).
There has already been deregulation to an extent. The scope of practice for lower licenses such as Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants has been increased in many states such that they are now allowed to perform most primary care services. This is a great option for other smart and good people who don't want to spend 3 - 7+ years in residency and take on enormous student loans.
That is misinformation. Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern. The molecules are too large to be absorbed through human digestive systems. Almost all of the cholesterol in our bodies is endogenously produced.
Yeah, pick your poison. I've seen Prop 65 warnings on spinach, which apparently absorbs quite a bit of heavy metals from the soil. Eat your vegetables, but not too much!
If you want to feed observation data into Epic for charting that is quite easy. It supports inbound interfaces using HL7 V2 Messaging and FHIR standards for things like medical device waveforms, aggregated device data, vital signs, etc. Other major inpatient EHRs have similar functionality.
The FDA has a whole program office to assist startups with medical device innovation. They can help you a lot if you engage with them early in the development process and explain what you're trying to accomplish. Think of them as partners, not obstacles.
But it's tough to make improvements. Regular hospital design is (roughly) optimized for staff productivity. They need to be able to treat and monitor many patients simultaneously which requires clear sight lines, good lighting, and a high level of automation. A more humane hospital design would also require more staff at a time when we already have a severe shortage. Where would the funding come from?
Please propose a design for better hardware then. You'll make a fortune and do a lot of good in the process.
Seriously, what would motivate you to make a comment like that? Do you think medical device engineers and clinicians are unaware of the false alarm issue and haven't already tried a variety of improvements? There is an inherent trade-off between false alarms and missing a real problem. And devices need to be not only accurate but also affordable, durable, and cost effective. It's not easy to get this right.
I have no problem with strict enforcement of current speed limits in residential areas. But speed limits on controlled access highways in many states are set ridiculously low. When government officials try to claim that a 65mph limit on a flat, straight freeway is necessary for "safety" it's obvious that they're being disingenuous and this is just a revenue grab. It breeds contempt for the law among the driving public and is ultimately counterproductive.
The emissions and efficiency difference between 55, 60, 65, and 70mph are significant and cannot be understated. It makes such a real difference for air quality that TEXAS (the state that hates regulation and built the monstrosity called the Katy freeway) has a reduced speed limit in some metro areas for air quality reasons.
In fact, the reason most national highways have a speedlimit of 50mph, even out in the boonies in Kansas where everything is flat and straight, is because of the fuel crisis of the 70s.
When I was a child, I was curious why highways were 50mph but the interstates had a speedlimit of 65-70mph, so I went and found out instead of assuming it was a disingenous revenue grab.
Most interstates were generally built after the fuel crisis, and they modified the national speed limit in 1988, setting the speed to 65mph, again for efficiency reasons. It was repealed in 1995. Perhaps 65mph is what was considered safe for the road and vehicular technology at the time, and no one has had the political or municipal capital to do a new study ever since.
You want that speed limit changed, contact your reps, I guess.
You typically don’t want different limits for different vehicles on the same highway. Although where I live trucks have a lower limit than passenger vehicles.
https://www.commerce.gov/news/blog/2024/04/us-remains-worlds...
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