Work Life Balance, BS make your Health #1

Work Life balance is standard HR language to minimize the litigation exposure.  Here is an article that says the USA’s life work balance is amongst the lowest.

To many tired American workers, this won't come as a surprise. The United States has a pretty abysmal ranking on the list of developed countries for creating a balance between work and life away from work.

Americans work longer hours, have fewer vacation days and leisure hours, and spend as much or more time cooking, cleaning and caring for family as their international counterparts.

This is according to the 2013 Better Life Index, compiled by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a nongovernmental organization in France that tracks economic and social data from its economically developed member countries.

Here are two dlibert cartoons that poke fun at the concept.

Just went to a funeral service for a friend who had a sudden cardiac arrest at the age of 47.  She didn’t make her health #1, and most likely increased the risk of her cardiac arrest.

If any of my data center friends look like they are losing the health vs. work battle, I try to persuade them that making your health #1 is best for you overall.  

(Note: I tried to embed the Dilbert Cartoons, but the html code didn’t work.  

Pssst, Aspirin may be good for health beyond heart disease, reduce your cancer risk

I am an old guy, turning 54 this year.  My Dad died from Colon Cancer when he was 64, only 10 years older than I will be shortly.  I have had three colonscopy tests to make sure I am OK.  My cholesterol is managed with a statin.  I don’t smoke, get an annual physical, and work out 4-5 times a week.

What else can I do?  Taking a daily dose of aspirin is recommended with some risks.

Daily aspirin therapy: Understand the benefits and risks

Is an aspirin a day the right thing for you? It's not as easy a decision as it sounds. Know the benefits and risks before considering daily aspirin therapy.

One of the studies that got attention is from my friends at RMS who have a study on the financial risk to pension funds if adults take daily aspirin, creating a $100 billion increased cost to support adults who live longer.

Rise in Aspirin Use Likely to Increase Pensioner Life Expectancy

• NEWARK, Calif. – April 02, 2013 –

• Recent medical reports have confirmed the growing body of evidence that taking a daily low-dose of aspirin reduces cancer mortality, in addition to its known benefits for cardiovascular health. Experts believe around 15% of current cancer deaths could be prevented by daily aspirin use with benefits beginning as early as three years into treatment. Conventional cancer treatments are expensive and new treatments typically require a lengthy approval process. By contrast, aspirin is inexpensive and readily available and has the potential for rapid uptake.

Based on these new findings, RMS modeled several potential scenarios of daily aspirin uptake which revealed that a typical 65 year-old male could see a 12-month increase in life expectancy and a 40% increase in the chance of living to 100, depending on a variety of lifestyle factors.*

Women’s risk of heart disease is significant and there is evidence aspirin helps with cancer’s that impact women.

Previous research has suggested that aspirin may help to reduce the risk of breast cancer and melanoma. Now, new research from the National Institutes of Health suggests that women who take low-dose aspirin every day may reduce their risk of ovarian cancer by 20%.

The findings were recently published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Big Data Changing Healthcare, AI is better and cheaper than your DR

GigaOm's Derrick Harris has a post on how some Dr's using AI were able to come up with cheaper and better treatment than your Dr.  This could increase the data center's used in healthcare.

Credit: Indiana University

Specifically, Bennett and Hauser found via a simulation of 500 random cases that their model decreased the cost per unit of outcome change to $189 from the $497 without it, an improvement of 58.5 percent. They found their original model improved patient outcomes by nearly 35 percent, but that tweaking a few parameters could bring that number to 41.9 percent.

I've been spending a fair amount of time at Hospitals, not because I am sick, but because of the potential projects to be more efficient.

Even though there are some people who would see this as bad, there are also many who see the potential.

The idea behind the research, carried out by Casey Bennett and Kris Hauser, is simple and gets to the core of why so many people care so much about data in the first place: If doctors can consider what’s actually happening and likely to happen instead of relying on intuition, they should be able to make better decisions.