Featured Articles

Triathlete Trains on the Public Dime

November 14, 2008 16:01

There must be something in the smoke: a few months ago we blogged the tale of Albert Arroyo, a Boston firefighter who participated in a body building contest while collecting workers comp for an alleged disability. Well, to demonstrate that we harbor neither geographic nor gender prejudices, we...

Grace Under Pressure

January 20, 2009 14:15

When a flock of geese flew into two engines of US Airways Flight 1549 last Friday, pilot Chesley Sullenberger was confronted with a set of circumstances he had never seen before. Sure, the flight simulators may have thrown a similar scenario at him, but this was real: he had a plane loaded with 155...

Recent Articles

March Madness & Risk

March 21, 2012 21:12

Healthcare Economist Jason Shafrin is this week's riskmeister - he hosts Cavalcade of Risk #153, the March Madness Edition. He has filtered this to a nice trim edition of what he calls the "elite 8." We're pleased that he thought our post made the grade!...

Pennsylvania: Crime Wave in a Bureaucracy

March 21, 2012 18:48

The Insider does not normally think of state workers comp insurance funds as hubs of criminal activity, but then again, we haven't been to Scranton lately. James McDonnell, 53, is a supervisor in the State Workers' Insurance Fund (SWIF). He makes about $51,000 a year - at least, that's his declared...

From imagination to reality in less than a century: Telemedicine and Electronic Health Records

March 20, 2012 12:22

Today, we slip back in time to 1925 and put on our Flash Gordon glasses to speculate about the future, a time when a doctor not only "sees what is going on in the patient's room by means of a television screen" but also employs a robotic-like instrument called the Teledactyl (Tele, far; Dactyl,...

Health Wonk Review, Irish style, and other noteworthy news briefs

March 15, 2012 19:48

Guinness is good for you - That's the news from Tinker Ready, who is hosting the Health Wonk Review: Wearing the Green for the St. Patrick's Day Edition at her blog Boston Health News. We think it's pretty fitting to have a Boston blog hosting this particular edition! From the bizarre file - Thomas...

New study reveals occupational chemical exposure risks for nurses' reproductive health

March 13, 2012 19:51

Female nurses who have occupational exposure to sterilizing agents and chemotherapy drugs are at least twice as likely to have miscarriages as those who do not have such exposure. Elizabeth Grossman of The Pump Handle offers a summary of a recent study on chemical exposures and nurses' reproductive...

Medicare Set-Aside as Marital Asset?

March 12, 2012 18:28

Here is a truly bizarre case from Illinois that will likely send our many attorney readers scrambling for their statute books. Christopher Washkowiak worked as a pipefitter. He suffered a serious work-related injury in 2009. The following year, his marriage broke up (dissolved as of August) and he...

Risk roundup, pill wars, odd lot, obesity & more

March 08, 2012 17:27

Risk Roundup - Emily Holbrook hosts Cavalcade of Risk #152 at Risk Management Monitor Florida's pill war - Timothy Martin and Arian-Campo Flores of the Wall St Journal take in the Florida landscape after the pill mill crackdown in New Front Opens in the Florida Pill War. They note that, "One former...

Violence in healthcare: 61% of all workplace assaults are committed by healthcare patients

March 05, 2012 19:45

According to a recent NCCI Report on Violence (summary) (Full Report, PDF), "the majority of workplace assaults are committed by healthcare patients." While there is good news in the fact that workplace homicides and assaults are on the decline, the NCCI report says this: "The decline in the rate...