Goals, Priorities, and Dollars

National priorities and goals.

Can 28 major national organizations that collectively influence every part of the health care system really make a difference? That was my question when I first received a report from the National Quality Forum (NQF) in Washington, DC.1 Readers of my previous P&T columns might recall that Americans spend more per capita on health care than any other industrialized country, yet our results in te...

Yet another Semantics of Goals and Goal Priorities

This paper presents a semantics of goals that deals with the problem of closeness under believed implications. The paper develops the semantics of wishes, its relation to beliefs, and deene goals in relation to wishes. Also, the semantics of a priority or importance relation among propositions (and goals) is developed. Finally the paper advances in extending this semantics to the multi-agent case.

Research priorities for geriatric palliative care: goals, values, and preferences.

Older patients and their families desire control over health decisions in serious illness. Experts recommend discussion of prognosis and goals of care prior to decisions about treatment. Having achieved longevity, older persons often prioritize other goals such as function, comfort, or family support--and skilled communication is critical to shift treatment to match these goals. Shared decision...

Money, Credit, and Euro-Dollars

Trading Dollars for Dollars: The Price of Attention Online and Offline

Recent years have witnessed a crisis in journalism. Newspaper staffs have been cut by a third since 2000 (Pew Research Center 2013). Stock prices of major newspaper companies have fallen by more than half over the same period. The costly work of gathering, interpreting, and disseminating news—activities widely believed to have large positive political and social externalities (Downs 1957; Becke...