In the summer of 1996, Congress voted to increase the federal minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15 per hour. On August 20, 1996, President Clinton signed the legislation, which implemented the increase in two stages: a $0.50 per hour increase on October 1, 1996, followed by a $0.40 increase on September 1, 1997. Supporters argued that the bill would raise the earnings of millions of low-wage worker...

Finding my way through a bramble of monitors tangled in the dense undergrowth of thorny data. Morning rounds are a forest thick with prickly questions. Perfect strangers become patients. Personalities baroque as the 50 year-old Hispanic man admitted yesterday with back pain. In prison for 19 years, (in America for 20) Arms, chest, and thick neck all Hieronymus Bosch and guitar-string calligraph...

The concepts of peer review and the venerable morbidity and mortality conference are familiar improvement approaches to health care providers. These 2 entities are typically provider or patient centric and are not typically extended within hospitals and health systems as a tool for organizational learning for care process or system failures. Out of a desire to deepen our understanding and accel...

RESULTS: Sixty patients completed the survey. The majority (92%) reported overall satisfaction with pain control. On a scale of 1–10, the average worst post-operative pain score was 6.4. The average pain score at the first post-operative visit was 2.3, with only 25% still taking opioids at that time. Opioids were discontinued in 58.6% of patients because they no longer had pain, in 20.7% becaus...