Proper Nursing Staff Can Save Patient Lives And Reduce Healthcare Costs
As the presidential candidates stomp in Florida this week and toss about their ideas on how to make health care more affordable in America, a UCF Health Services Administration professor has completed a study that shows one way hospitals can save money.
Contrary to popular belief, having the proper number of registered nurses caring for patients may not cost more. Associate Professor Lynn Unruh's review found that in many cases it actually lowered the costs of giving care.
"As an economist, I know how it works," Unruh said. "It comes down to money. But the research shows that it makes economic sense to properly staff. We need more research to establish nurse to patient ratio standards, but the bottom line is that if you find the right balance you not only save lives, you save money."
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Computer Vision May Not Be As Good As Thought
For years, scientists have been trying to teach computers how to see like humans, and recent research has seemed to show computers making progress in recognizing visual objects. A new MIT study, however, cautions that this apparent success may be misleading because the tests being used are inadvertently stacked in favor of computers.
Computer vision is important for applications ranging from "intelligent" cars to visual prosthetics for the blind. Recent computational models show apparently impressive progress, boasting 60-percent success rates in classifying natural photographic image sets. These include the widely used Caltech101 database, intended to test computer vision algorithms against the variety of images seen in the real world.
However, James DiCarlo, a neuroscientist in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, graduate student Nicolas Pinto and David Cox of the Rowland Harvard Institute argue that these image sets have design flaws that enable computers to succeed where they would fail with more authentically varied images. For example, photographers tend to center objects in a frame and to prefer certain views and contexts. The visual system, by contrast, encounters objects in a much broader range of conditions.
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Contrary to popular belief, having the proper number of registered nurses caring for patients may not cost more. Associate Professor Lynn Unruh's review found that in many cases it actually lowered the costs of giving care.
"As an economist, I know how it works," Unruh said. "It comes down to money. But the research shows that it makes economic sense to properly staff. We need more research to establish nurse to patient ratio standards, but the bottom line is that if you find the right balance you not only save lives, you save money."
Click here to see the rest of this article in Medical News Today
Computer Vision May Not Be As Good As Thought
For years, scientists have been trying to teach computers how to see like humans, and recent research has seemed to show computers making progress in recognizing visual objects. A new MIT study, however, cautions that this apparent success may be misleading because the tests being used are inadvertently stacked in favor of computers.
Computer vision is important for applications ranging from "intelligent" cars to visual prosthetics for the blind. Recent computational models show apparently impressive progress, boasting 60-percent success rates in classifying natural photographic image sets. These include the widely used Caltech101 database, intended to test computer vision algorithms against the variety of images seen in the real world.
However, James DiCarlo, a neuroscientist in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, graduate student Nicolas Pinto and David Cox of the Rowland Harvard Institute argue that these image sets have design flaws that enable computers to succeed where they would fail with more authentically varied images. For example, photographers tend to center objects in a frame and to prefer certain views and contexts. The visual system, by contrast, encounters objects in a much broader range of conditions.
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Dark Chocolate May Not Always Be Good For Your Heart
According to an Editorial in the Lancet, dark chocolate that is rich in flavenols might be good for the heart. However, to gain the health benefits from dark chocolate might prove difficult.
According to a study in Circulation, in 11 heart transplant recipients, dark chocolate which is rich in flavenols , induced coronary vasodilatation and improved coronary vascular function, compared with patients consuming a flavenol-free control chocolate. Dark chocolate has been shown to have cardiovascular benefits in other studies too.
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Link Between Obesity And Decreased Seatbelt Use
Obese people are less likely to use their seatbelts than the rest of the population, adding to the public health risks associated with this rapidly growing problem.
The connection was made by Vanderbilt University psychologist David Schlundt and his colleagues at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn.
"We found that when weight goes up, seatbelt use goes down," Schlundt, associate professor of psychology and assistant professor of medicine, said. "This is an additional public health problem associated with obesity that was not on the radar screen. We hope these new findings will help promote awareness campaigns to encourage people to use their seatbelts and that additional resources, like seatbelt extenders, will be made more readily available."
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According to a study in Circulation, in 11 heart transplant recipients, dark chocolate which is rich in flavenols , induced coronary vasodilatation and improved coronary vascular function, compared with patients consuming a flavenol-free control chocolate. Dark chocolate has been shown to have cardiovascular benefits in other studies too.
Click here to see the rest of this article on Medical News Today
Link Between Obesity And Decreased Seatbelt Use
Obese people are less likely to use their seatbelts than the rest of the population, adding to the public health risks associated with this rapidly growing problem.
The connection was made by Vanderbilt University psychologist David Schlundt and his colleagues at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn.
"We found that when weight goes up, seatbelt use goes down," Schlundt, associate professor of psychology and assistant professor of medicine, said. "This is an additional public health problem associated with obesity that was not on the radar screen. We hope these new findings will help promote awareness campaigns to encourage people to use their seatbelts and that additional resources, like seatbelt extenders, will be made more readily available."
Click here to see the rest of this article on Medical News Today
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