Metaskills are skills needed to learn how to learn. They are higher-order skills – like critical thinking, the ability to organize information, the strategy of building on what was previously learned, and the belief that repeated practice can make perfect, or at least result in some improvement.  Going very deep into one subject, learning and understanding it over a course of several years, acts as a point of reference that is useful when we learn other subjects.

The subject or topic is almost unimportant – only it’s easier and more enjoyable if we choose something we are interested in: basketball, Jane Austen’s novels, the gastrointestinal tract, martial arts – the list is endless. The principle is that in the process of learning how to do one thing really well, we learn how to learn.

The question is does learning how to do one thing really well have any economic or personal significance anymore?  According to many experts since we don’t know what skills tomorrow are needed, we must strive to impart real understanding and the ability to apply knowledge to new situations. 

Perhaps the deep learning of a single subject can provide that required general reference point to handle different and new situations, not to mention the patience and fortitude to try, try again.

Source: By Ranjani Iyer Mohanty, June 7, 2010 The Christian Science Monitor

The Affordable Care Act has many positive provisions, including new coverage for two million low-income Californians under Medi-Cal and other public coverage programs and for another two to three million who would be eligible for subsidies to purchase private coverage.

Also, people with health problems (“pre-existing conditions”) will not be denied the ability to purchase private coverage based on their health status. And it will be much less likely that a serious illness will be followed by bankruptcy.

However, the law has only a few elements to help reduce costs, and none of that will work as quickly as we need. If we are to avoid bankrupting our society, we must find ways to reduce costs while maintaining and improving the quality of care.

So what is to be done?

• Change the way we pay for health care: paying health care providers to do more things with more expensive equipment will bankrupt California.
• Squeeze out inefficiency in the system: improve the efficiencies through the proper use of modern information technology.
• Give patients real power to choose: give patients, employers and payers more access to cost and quality information so they can understand the value of what they are buying
• Innovate, innovate, and innovate some more: innovations should allow consumers to participate in their own care, promote use of cost-reducing technologies
• Coordinate the hand-off: decisions on implementing reform must be made soon by the current Administration and Legislature. Today’s leaders should focus on establishing effective governance, defining private and public sector roles, and assuring that patients are well-served by new coverage systems. We need a durable foundation to allow a smooth hand-off to a new administration in 2011.

Source: Mark D. Smith, M.D., M.B.A. June 2010, California Healthcare Foundation

A study reported in 2005 showed that even older Americans may improve their memory by instituting a memory-improvement plan consisting of regular mental exercises (working crossword puzzles, word games, brainteasers, and the like), daily physical activity, a healthier diet, and stress reduction.

Stress
Without a doubt, one of the most common reasons that healthy people find themselves becoming forgetful is stress. And it’s not just major, life-changing stress that affects learning and memory. Most of us never realize how much of a toll the day-to-day irritations, hassles, and annoyances can take. Fortunately, high stress-hormone levels over the short term don’t appear to do permanent damage to the brain. As your stress eases or as you employ coping techniques, you should find that your memory improves. On the other hand, there is some evidence to suggest that prolonged exposure to unmitigated stress may damage the hippocampus, making it less able to signal the body to turn off the stress hormones, leading to a vicious cycle of higher and higher stress-hormone levels and further decay of memory and cognition. In time, the hippocampus may actually shrink.

There’s another reason why you may not remember so well when you are under a lot of stress, and it has to do with paying attention. In order to record information well enough to form a memory, you have to be able to focus on the subject you want to remember. Anything that interferes with your ability to pay attention, therefore, will impair your memory. As the sources of your stress monopolize your thoughts, you simply don’t record information the way you normally would, and if the information never gets properly stored to begin with, there won’t be a memory there to retrieve.

Exercise
Studies have found that people who exercise frequently have a distinctive brain-wave pattern, characterized by steep peaks and valleys, that is associated with alertness. These high-exercise folks are better at blocking out distractions and focusing, which means that they are better at paying attention to material that they want to remember and better at retrieving those memories when needed. Research has also found that aerobic exercise can help maintain short-term general and verbal memory. This type of memory is especially important when you want to recall names, directions, and telephone numbers or match a name with a face. Also the results of research reported in March of 2007 suggest an even more impressive role for exercise: building new cells in a specific region of the brain that is associated with the age-related decline in memory that normally begins sometime around age 30.

Sleep
Recent research, especially studies using high-tech tools — such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) — has begun to reveal much more information about the importance of sleep to memory. Such research suggests that it is during sleep that the brain consolidates the initially fragile memories made during the day, reinforcing them and “uploading” them, so to speak, for long-term storage. Once again our old friend the hippocampus appears to play an essential part in the process, storing the day’s memories until they can be consolidated at night. Sleep also facilitates or improves the brain’s ability to remember both declarative information, such as facts and events, and procedural information, such as how to play the scales on a piano keyboard.

Diet
The quality of the diet appears to affect brain health and function, including memory. The best diet for your brain is, basically, the kind that’s also healthy for the rest of your body — a well-balanced diet, filled with whole grains, a wide variety of colorful fresh fruits and vegetables, and moderate amounts of protein, that supplies just enough calories to fuel your daily activities. That diet should also include some fat such as monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats that are high in omega-3 fatty acids but not the saturated fats.

A brain-healthy, memory-wise diet should also provide sufficient amounts of the vitamins and minerals the body needs for health. Especially Vitamin B, C, E, and Magnesium.

Source: Richard C. Mohs, PhD; How Stuff Works

Nearly six years after California voters approved Proposition 63, Los Angeles County has seen a sharp decline in hospitalizations (67%), incarcerations (75%) and homeless (68%) rates among people with mental illnesses, according to county data. Countywide, the number of clients under the age of 18 hospitalized at psychiatric facilities due to mental health issues has dropped by 40%, according to LACDMH. The number of adults under the age of 60 hospitalized has dropped 44%, and the number of older adults has dropped 42%.  Hospitalization days dropped 16% for adults and 17% for older adults.

Proposition 63 levied a 1% tax on individuals with annual incomes higher than $1 million to raise funds for mental health initiatives. Officials said the extra funds have allowed Los Angeles County to contract with more private health care providers and mental health caseworkers.  County officials claim that the drops in jail and hospital days alone have saved $39.8 million overall

Hospital Association of Southern California” which represents most of the hospitals county wide.  LACDMH spokesperson Kathleen Piche said the programs have been effective in terms of diverting the mentally ill from ERs and into urgent care facilities or primary care physicians with extended office hours.

Consider these primary symptoms of the disorder known as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD):

• Often has difficulty in sustaining attention in tasks
• Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly
• Often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities
• Often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort
  Is often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli

Many of us admit experiencing most of these traits.  The new technologies ( texting, tweeting, facebook, google searching,…) are putting infinite demands on our attention and as we try to juggle them all, we literally weaken our capacity for absorbed focus. But what is the cost of it all on our well-being?  According to the former Microsoft and Apple researcher Linda Stone: “the consequence is we’re over stimulated, over-wound, and unfulfilled.”

Attention is like any muscle. It gets stronger by training it systematically. Here are three powerful attentional practices to get us started.

• Set aside at least one designated time each week to think creatively, reflectively, strategically or long term.
• Take at least a half an hour in the evening to read something challenging and absorbing – an antidote to churning out emails, and racing between websites.
• Do the most important thing first every morning, without interruptions, for at least 60 to 90 minutes. It’s the ideal way to take charge of your agenda and get the most challenging work done, with the highest efficiency. 

Source: Tony Schwartz, Posted June 1st, 2010 - The Huffington Post

Imagine a sensor attached to your telephone, that instantly diagnoses viral agents and transmits that to a central community database. That’s the potential of an ongoing Pentagon-funded research project, spearheaded by geneticists at Duke University. Since 2006, they’ve been hunting for a genetic signature that can accurately assess, well before symptoms appear, whether someone’s been infected with a virus. Eight months into a $19.5 million grant from Darpa, the Pentagon’s out-there research agency, the expert behind the program is anticipating a tool with implications far beyond military circles.

What’s realy exciting is tha the benefits of this Darpa initiative goes beyond that. Not only have the researchers found a specific genetic signature that indicates viral infection, but the team has concluded that viruses and bacterial infections trigger different genes. Which means physicians could one day know whether to prescribe antibiotics, which can treat bacteria but not viruses. The drugs are so overused and wrongly prescribed, experts at a recent congressional hearing warned that Americans face “a post antibiotic era.”

The privacy and regulatory aspects will be a barrier to make these devices available for use, but one day they will be!

Source: Katie Drummond, May 13, 2010 Wired Magazine

According to Dr. Lucas Restrep, the new Arizona state immigration bill signed into law on April 23, 2010 will seriously obstruct, if not undermine, the practice of medicine in the state of Arizona. Arizona practitioners, hospitals, and medical associations need to ponder the extent of their liability under the new law and draft clear institutional policies to defend their patients and employees from potential harassment. As Dr. Resterp states this bill threatens one of the oldest traditions of medicine: physicians shall protect patients regardless of nationality or race. This legislation, if unchallenged, will force health care providers to choose between the dignity of their profession and the indignity of violating the law.

Source: New England Journal of Medicine

Does USA have “the best health care system in the world as claimed by conservative senate republicans? Not… according to Donal Berwick the president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).

Despite the fact that Berwick will be charged with beginning to squeeze $400 billion worth of waste and fraud out of the Medicare system over a period of ten years, in the two months since President Obama named Dr. Donald Berwick as his candidate to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, (CMS) not one industry group has voiced opposition to his nomination. Industry insiders understand that as Berwick reins in unnecessary spending, their revenues will be trimmed. Nevertheless Berwick’s reputation for integrity, wisdom and success in protecting patients is such that the health care industry stands behind him, endorsing the president’s choice.

Berwick who has traveled the world seeing foreign health care system first-hand understands how much we have to gain by studying success in other nations as we design a “patient-centered” system that is both more affordable and safer. Berwick often points out that in other countries health care systems are more “system-like.” Doctors and hospitals collaborate to improve the population’s health. They share electronic records and co-ordinate care. Our system, by contrast, is fiercely competitive and fragmented, with most physicians working in small practices while surgical centers vie with hospitals for the most lucrative cases.

According to Berwick, the entire Western world testifies that there are fine ways to provide health insurance to absolutely everybody while investing less than 60 cents on every dollar that we spend today. We need to have the courage and confidence to figure out how to do that ourselves. To say that we spend 15 percent of our gross domestic product on health care and that that is not enough. . . . is ridiculous. It is dishonest. We have enough. We have plenty. What we lack is not social resources, it is honesty.

Source: Maggie Mahar Posted May 26,2010 @ Health Beat

A very cool tool that lets us organize our health options into a decision tree, a method for factoring in our inputs, mapping out our options, and guiding us along the best possible path. The idea is instead of checking in on our health when we visit the doctor or get lab test results, we can now tap into a constant stream of information and opportunity. We can minimize our uncertainty and maximize our control. By monitoring and tweaking our inputs, we can influence and even determine our well-being. Taken all at once, our health may seem inscrutable; laid out in a sequence, it becomes a series of decisions, each with risks, benefits, and trade-offs. For more information and a demo of the tool visit: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_decisiontree/

Source: Wired Magazine

The findings of a research conducted at Stanford University Graduate School of Business suggests that denying people access to a product will make them desire it more and work harder to get it—but will also make them less likely to keep it.

The boost to value comes from knowing we devoted extra effort to acquiring it, but it also has a negative self concept impact because we did not succeed on the first try. Desire and liking are independent from each other and also interact in strange ways. The more we want something, the less we’ll actually like it. It’s a lusting/loathing thing. The lusting/loathing effects were more intense with people who were less emotional, as measured on standard scales. “Emotional” people did not show the effect as strongly.

The results of this research make it clear that marketers should be cautious about using a strategic shortage to generate demand. It will increase demand right now but can have other costs. It will have implications for other products in your brand, repeat purchases, and loyalty. It comes down to what the goal of the company is. If it’s to make quarterly numbers, denying access may be a useful tool. It could be that marketers know what they’re doing and want those short-term gains; but it’s not a healthy long-term strategy.

Source: Harvard Business Review
Uzma Khan is an assistant professor of marketing at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business