Health affairs
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Health And Economic Outcomes Up To Three Years After A Workplace Wellness Program: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Workplace wellness programs aim to improve employee health and lower health care spending. Recent randomized studies have found modest short-run effects on health behaviors, but longer-run effects remain poorly understood. We analyzed a clustered randomized trial of a workplace wellness program implemented at a large multisite US employer. ⋯ At the end of three years, employees at the treatment worksites had better self-reported health behaviors, including a higher rate of actively managing their weight. No significant differences were found in self-reported health; clinical markers of health; health care spending or use; or absenteeism, tenure, or job performance. Improvements in health behaviors after three years were similar to those at eighteen months, but the longer follow-up did not yield detectable improvements in clinical, economic, or employment outcomes.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A Black Alzheimer's Patient Wants To Be Part Of The Cure.
A daughter gets her mother into a clinical trial for an Alzheimer's drug, with few other black patients enrolled.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The costs of nonbeneficial treatment in the intensive care setting.
Ethics consultations have been shown to reduce the use of "nonbeneficial treatments," defined as life-sustaining treatments delivered to patients who ultimately did not survive to hospital discharge, when treatment conflicts occurred in the adult intensive care unit (ICU). In this paper we estimated the costs of nonbeneficial treatment using the results from a randomized trial of ethics consultations. We found that ethics consultations were associated with reductions in hospital days and treatment costs among patients who did not survive to hospital discharge. We conclude that consultations resolved conflicts that would have inappropriately prolonged nonbeneficial or unwanted treatments in the ICU instead of focusing on more appropriate comfort care.