Electronic Health Records and Rural Hospitals

Nearly 20% of the U.S. population lives in rural areas and are not resistant to many of the U.S. healthcare challenges such as cost, quality, and access. In fact, the distinguishing cultural, social, economic, and geographic traits which characterize rural America place rural populations at greater risk for many diseases and health disorders. Like those in urban settings, people from rural areas have been affected by the use of health information technology, where treatment is now data-intensive, and there are more options and greater expectations of quality and accountability. Due to cost, geographic and social traits, and the digital divide between urban and rural communities, the rapid changes in health information technology have not affected rural communities in the same way they have affected more central and populous areas. The irony is that rural communities are often the ones with the poorest health outcomes and most in need of assistance. Implementation of EHRs is more difficult in rural areas, in comparison to urban ones due to certain barriers. But, with a little more time and effort on behalf of hospital staff, policy makers, and patients, these rural areas can overcome the barriers of implementation and succeed in meeting the meaningful use requirements. Ultimately, this will transform the quality of care within rural healthcare facilities and furthermore improve the health outcomes of rural patients

Institutional choice vs communication in social dilemmas : an experimental apporach

This paper presents an experimental study that compares the ability of human groups to escape the tragedy of the commons through institutional change or communication. Teams of five players are placed in a dynamic CPR environment with inefficient institutional settings. The results clearly show the vital importance of communication. At the same time, the groups who were allowed to replace the inefficient institutional settings by other more appropriate rules performed worse than those groups who were not given this opportunity

Endowment effect theory and the Samuelson solution : a thought experiment

Thaler (1980) employs prospect theory to explain the endowment effect, i.e. the empirically observed disparity between the willingness to pay for a certain good (WTP) and the willingness to accept retribution payments in exchange for giving up this good (WTA). This disparity is caused either by the disutility from parting with one?s endowment and/or by an extra utility from ownership which is not anticipated by individuals who are not endowed with the good. These effects may not apply to public goods because consumers are not given exclusive property rights. The graphical tools introduced by Samuelson (1954) are applied to show how these effects influence the allocation of resources among private and public goods. An inefficient allocation only occurs if the ownership utility effect applies to one good but not to the other