"Drawing on an unusually rich trove of data, the authors have refuted more politically convenient myths in one book than most academics do in a lifetime."—Nicholas Bagley, professor of law, ...University of Michigan Law School "Synthesizing decades of their own and others' research on medical liability, the authors unravel what we know and don't know about our medical malpractice system, why neither patients nor doctors are being rightly served, and what economics can teach us about the path forward."—Anupam B. Jena, Harvard Medical School Over the past 50 years, the United States experienced three major medical malpractice crises, each marked by dramatic increases in the cost of malpractice liability insurance. These crises fostered a vigorous politicized debate about the causes of the premium spikes, and the impact on access to care and defensive medicine. State legislatures responded to the premium spikes by enacting damages caps on non-economic, punitive, or total damages and Congress has periodically debated the merits of a federal cap on damages. However, the intense political debate has been marked by a shortage of evidence, as well as misstatements and overclaiming. The public is confused about answers to some basic questions. What caused the premium spikes? What effect did tort reform actually have? Did tort reform reduce frivolous litigation? Did tort reform actually improve access to health care or reduce defensive medicine? Both sides in the debate have strong opinions about these matters, but their positions are mostly talking points or are based on anecdotes. Medical Malpractice Litigation provides factual answers to these and other questions about the performance of the med mal system. The authors, all experts in the field and from across the political spectrum, provide an accessible, fact-based response to the questions ordinary Americans and policymakers have about the performance of the med mal litigation system.
Medical malpractice lawsuits are common and controversial in the United States. Since early 2002, doctors' insurance premiums for malpractice coverage have soared. As Congress and state governments ...debate laws intended to stabilize the cost of insurance, doctors continue to blame lawyers and lawyers continue to blame doctors and insurance companies. This book, which is the capstone of three years' comprehensive research funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, goes well beyond the conventional debate over tort reform and connects medical liability to broader trends and goals in American health policy. Contributions from leading figures in health law and policy marshal the best available information, present new empirical evidence, and offer cutting-edge analysis of potential reforms involving patient safety, liability insurance and tort litigation.
We calculate the present value of state employee pension liabilities using discount rates that reflect the risk of the payments from a taxpayer perspective. If benefits have the same default and ...recovery characteristics as state general obligation debt, the national total of promised liabilities based on current salary and service is $3.20 trillion. If pensions have higher priority than state debt, the value of liabilities is much larger. Using zero-coupon Treasury yields, which are default-free but contain other priced risks, promised liabilities are $4.43 trillion. Liabilities are even larger under broader concepts that account for salary growth and future service.
Eating disorders (EDs) have become a social epidemic in the developed world. This book addresses the close links between EDs and exercise, helping us to understand why people with EDs often exercise ...to excessive and potentially harmful levels. This is also the first book to examine this issue from an ethical and legal perspective, identifying the rights and responsibilities of people with EDs, their families and the fitness professionals and clinicians that work with them.
The book offers an accessible account of EDs and closely examines the concept of addiction. Drawing on a wide range of medical, psychological, physiological, sociological and philosophical sources, the book examines the benefits and risks of exercise for the ED population, explores the links between EDs and other abuses of the body in the sports environment and addresses the issue of athletes with disordered eating behaviour. Importantly, the book also surveys current legislation and professional codes of conduct that guide the work of fitness professionals and clinicians in this area and presents a clear and thorough set of case histories and action points to help professionals better understand, and care for, their clients with EDs.
Exercise and Eating Disorders is important reading for students of applied ethics, medical ethics and the ethics of sport, as well as for fitness professionals, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, sports coaches and sport and exercise scientists looking to improve their understanding of this important issue.
1. Eating Disorders: Symptoms and Facts 2. The Effects of Abnormal Eating 3. Clinical Explanations of Eating Disorders 4. Eating Disorders, Exercise and Addiction 5. Media and Eating Disorders 6. Exercise and Eating Disorders 7. People with Eating Disorders in the Gym 8. Law and Professional Guidelines 9. Ethical Issues 10. Recommendations and Conclusions
Simona Giordano is Senior Lecturer in Bioethics at the School of Law, University of Manchester, UK. She is Programme Director of medical ethics teaching in undergraduate medical education in the School of Medicine, and also teaches for the Master and Postgraduate Diploma in Healthcare Ethics and Law. Simona is a member of the UK Register of Exercise Professionals, and qualified as an exercise instructor in 1999.
Falls aren't funny Kendzior, Russell J; Kendzior, Russell J
2010., 2010, 2010-01-16
eBook
Slip-and-fall accidents are a growing problem. The total cost of these accidents now approaches 80 billion dollars each year, and that number is expected to double within the next decade. In Falls ...Aren't Funny: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Slip-and-Fall Crisis, author Russell J. Kendzior provides a comprehensive look at one of the most pervasive yet seldom addressed problems facing our world today. The book's three parts explore slips-and-fall accidents themselves, what causes them, and what can be done to prevent them. Kendzior begins by examining the financial costs, the industries hardest hit by slips and falls, and the heightened risk to the elderly population. He then looks at the causes for the numerous slip-and-fall accidents and injuries, from inadequate floor care to improper footwear, and the contributions of the insurance, legal, and manufacturing industries and how they worsen the problem. Finally, he outlines what can be done to prevent slip-and-fall accidents, and how everyone from manufacturers, to property owners, to the general public can help to reverse the trend of this increasingly expensive and dangerous problem. The book is replete with stories of real slip-and-fall accidents and injuries, up-to-date statistics, illustrative charts, and tips for prevention. It is comprehensive, dealing with all aspects of slip-and-fall accidents, their causes, and methods of prevention, while also being accessible and entertaining. It is an informative and much needed book for all managers, safety professionals, attorneys, business and property owners, and anyone else concerned with one of the nation's fastest growing safety crises.
The only volume on higher education law written specifically for nursing faculty, this volume imparts the basic foundations of the legal, professional, and ethical issues that concern faculty on a ...daily basis. It clearly defines the legal rights of students, professors, and educational institutions along with the case laws supporting those rights. Each chapter contains a vivid legal scenario, related legal principles and theoretical foundations, and critical thinking questions. Written by an author who is both a nurse educator and attorney, the volume emphasizes sound decision making so that readers can successfully navigate the complex legal issues confronting them in the faculty role. This second edition reflects recent changes in higher education and includes an emphasis on students' rights and safety. Chapters address the general legal rights of students with expanded content on the interplay with social media, rights of faculty regarding freedom of speech, faculty protection against lawsuits, faculty and the employment relationship, faculty relations, the teaching and scholarship roles of faculty, the service and clinical practice role of faculty, and ethical considerations for patients, students, and faculty in education environments. Appendices include information on how to read a legal case and how to research legal topics.
As of December 2008, state governments had approximately $1.94 trillion set aside in pension funds for their employees. How does the value of these assets compare to the present value of states' ...pension liabilities? Just as future Social Security and Medicare liabilities do not appear in the headline numbers of the U.S. federal debt, the financial liability from underfunded public pensions does not appear in the headline numbers of state debt. If pensions are underfunded, then the gap between pension assets and liabilities is off-balance-sheet government debt. We show that government accounting standards require states to use procedures that severely understate their liabilities. We then discuss the true economic funding of state public pension plans. Using market-based discount rates that reflect the risk profile of the pension liabilities, we calculate that the present value of the already-promised pension liabilities of the 50 U.S. states amount to $5.17 trillion, assuming that states cannot default on pension benefits that workers have already earned. Net of the $1.94 trillion in assets, these pensions are underfunded by $3.23 trillion. This “pension debt” dwarfs the states' publicly traded debt of $0.94 trillion. And we show that even before the market collapse of 2008, the system was economically severely underfunded, though public actuarial reports presented the plans' funding status in a more favorable light.
Practice and Policy Abstract:
Can information technology help to overcome the liabilities of globalization and cultural diversity, particularly when it comes to creation of exploratory innovations? ...This study answers in the affirmative. The authors argue that firms face difficulties in producing exploratory innovations because knowledge is often distributed across cultures and geographies. However, information technologies (IT) that promote social integration can help firms by overcoming the difficulties arising from global operations. In particular, the authors study the role of IT-enabled social integration capacity in affecting firm exploratory innovation. Analyzing data from 120 public U.S. manufacturing firms from 2003 to 2014, they find that social integration capacity has positive joint effects with global cultural diversity and with global geographical dispersion on exploratory innovation. In other words, firms can leverage social integration capacity to achieve greater exploratory innovation by turning the globalization liabilities into assets.
Although the ability to produce exploratory innovations is important for firm performance, firms face difficulties in producing exploratory innovations because knowledge is often distributed across cultures and geographies. In this study, we examine whether information technology (IT) helps firms to overcome the liabilities of global operations particularly when it comes to creation of exploratory innovations. We argue that information technologies that promote social integration facilitate more novel knowledge recombinations that help to overcome the difficulties arising from global operations. We draw on the knowledge-based view of the firm and hypothesize that IT-enabled social integration capacity influences exploratory innovation by enabling firms to leverage global cultural diversity and global geographical dispersion. Our empirical analyses using archival panel data from 120 public U.S. manufacturing firms from 2003 to 2014 support these hypotheses. A key implication of our results is that IT helps firms to achieve greater exploratory innovation by turning the potential liabilities of cultural diversity and geographical dispersion associated with global operations into assets.
We construct estimates of external assets and liabilities for 145 countries for 1970–2004. We describe our estimation methods and key features of the data at the country and global level. We focus on ...trends in net and gross external positions, and the composition of international portfolios. We document the increasing importance of equity financing and the improvement in the external position for emerging markets, and the differing pace of financial integration between advanced and developing economies. We also show the existence of a global discrepancy between estimated foreign assets and liabilities, and identify the asset categories accounting for this discrepancy.
This paper argues that the extent of financial contagion exhibits a form of phase transition: as long as the magnitude of negative shocks offecting financial institutions are sufficiently small, a ...more densely connected financial network (corresponding to a more diversified pattern of interbank liabilities) enhances financial stability. However, beyond a certain point, dense interconnections serve as a mechanism for the propagation of shocks, leading to a more fragile financial system. Our results thus highlight that the same factors that contribute to resilience under certain conditions may function as significant sources of systemic risk under others.
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