Bonny P McClain

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About Bonny P McClain
We read about health literacy and initiatives to improve the understanding of complicated language reserved for discussing medicine. Patients are becoming shared-decision makers and we need to foster and clarify dialogue to improve the translation of research findings, health policy, medical education, and healthcare.
Health literacy measures the ability to comprehend, evaluate, and negotiate the data to make informed healthcare decisions. Although we tend to think of health literacy as central to societal concerns, numeracy crosses both professional and patient populations. For example, peer-reviewed clinical research often discusses risk-benefit analyses without the clarification that "risk" is defined as both benefits and harms. How do we calculate the harms of treatment to arrive at an informed clinical decision central to the patient's best interests, values, and wishes?
How does numeracy influence standard care? What does the data show us about screening healthy individuals upstream from actual medical necessity? What do the "results" in technical medical literature really tell us? Is the message scrambled by the media? We can't consistently blame the pharmaceutical industry. They don't write the prescriptions--doctors do. Let's improve numeracy in medicine.
Health literacy measures the ability to comprehend, evaluate, and negotiate the data to make informed healthcare decisions. Although we tend to think of health literacy as central to societal concerns, numeracy crosses both professional and patient populations. For example, peer-reviewed clinical research often discusses risk-benefit analyses without the clarification that "risk" is defined as both benefits and harms. How do we calculate the harms of treatment to arrive at an informed clinical decision central to the patient's best interests, values, and wishes?
How does numeracy influence standard care? What does the data show us about screening healthy individuals upstream from actual medical necessity? What do the "results" in technical medical literature really tell us? Is the message scrambled by the media? We can't consistently blame the pharmaceutical industry. They don't write the prescriptions--doctors do. Let's improve numeracy in medicine.
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Blog postIt should come as no surprise that what you see is not determined solely by the patterns of light that fall upon your retinae. Indeed, that visual perception is more than meets the eye has been understood for centuries, and there are several extraretinal factors known to interact with the incoming sensory data to yield perceptual experience. Perhaps foremost among these factors is information learned from our prior encounters with the visual world—our memories—which enables us to i3 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postI have been spending unsupervised time with my thoughts. It sounds noble but I assure you, it is completely involuntary. As far as sleep goes if you know me you know that around 9 p.m. I am already heading upstairs to begin my post-menopausal moon salutations.
I do an abysmally short--some may say neglectful--skin care routine of washing my face. I can’t moisturize at night because apparently my face dreams it is a teenager and invites acne to the party. Next, there is a truncated r2 months ago Read more -
Blog postReductionism might seem a little hoity toity at first glance but you might be surprised how elegantly it applies to not only the brain and art but to data visualization in general.
The Matisse on the right, “The Snail”, uses swirling color blocks to mimic the swirl or pattern of a snail shell.
This only works if we have seen a snail shell, and our brain knows to compare this image to images stored in our memory. Reductionism2 months ago Read more -
Blog postThe full blog is here on data & donuts but there are sufficient followers receiving these posts that might miss out.
There are 46 million Americans with Alzheimer's disease in their brain right now, but no symptoms. --Richard Isaacson
I have two blogs. One is sort of a repository for information. I don’t pay for that one and at times I think it may have run its course but then I think of something else I want to park over there. The name of it is Alzheimer’s Di3 months ago Read more -
Blog postI simply don’t enjoy the remote bits as much as I thought I would. Following a series of Zoomy webinar formats (for scheduled speaking events) I felt hollow. Although I request attendees be allowed to raise hands and leave their video and mics live--not one host has acquiesced. Interactivity is paramount to engaging with your data or your data questions no?
Maybe you don’t realize how weird it is but basically you are talking to your own face for 45 minutes to an hour. Narrative sto3 months ago Read more -
Blog postI needed a minute. Distractions only take you so far and then you need to focus and make a plan. We all go through times of stress--the difference is how we manage these moments.
People overeat, play video games, take walks, smoke, and a wide variety of other positive and negative coping mechanisms. I try to lean in to behaviors that can better serve my goals. I prefer to go out on long solo runs on the trails. I queue up a list o4 months ago Read more -
Blog post"If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes."
--Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Data literacy is a popular buzz word lately. Often cited as an organizational goal or an individual professional metric but you might be surprised how blurry the end game might be. How do you define success? When ar4 months ago Read more -
Blog postOn the edge of what we know, in contact with the oceans of the unknown, shines the mystery and the beauty of the world--Carlo Rovelli
This weather. It seems like a whisper of possibility--of something shinier just around the corner. I queued up a playlist of podcasts covering ultra running, culture, data science, economics, medicine, and literature. You would think these are disparate topics united only by an individual runner’s eclectic preferences but you would be wrong. Edges are wher5 months ago Read more -
Blog postMore and more, journalism seems to have hopped out of Truth’s pocket and crept into another--Henry Rollins There are things I simply can’t explain--my fascination with Henry Rollins being one of them. Or perhaps my persistent curiosity to find the original “thing”.
Let me explain. When I hear or read a story I want to know where it was seeded.
Who created the idea that germinated into this shiny product I am consuming. Nature has it wired. Cancer, plague, viruses, pa5 months ago Read more -
Blog postI like the quote but don’t recall much about Athenian tragedies. Apparently Sophocles was a bit of a naysayer or to use BCE lingo (before the common era)--a tragedian. I have a mist of recall around his magnum opus, Oedipus. The main point being if you defy the gods, prepare to suffer the consequences. Oh. And the king of Thebes (Oedipus) accidentally kills his father and marries his mother so there is that.Continuing our theme of old is new again or “there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesia5 months ago Read more
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Blog postThe Ginsu knife commercials may have launched the current sh*tstorm of gimmicky selling techniques. Although I could argue that most of the current media darlings were all but a twinkle in somebody’s eye when this thing was first launched. You might make an argument for jealousy directed towards these multimillionaire course creators or YouTube stars--okay true, true. But mostly I am mystified. I’ll step you though my 'n of 1' experience. Because I just didn’t see the “there” there.
5 months ago Read more -
Blog postI teach people how to formulate a data question and the downstream ramifications and skills aligned with collecting, tidying, analyzing, and communicating the ensuing narrative. What we measure is a choice, which reflects implicitly our value system--Measuring What Counts The Global Movement for Well-Being I repeat the description of my role in the diverse health ecosystem because it evolves along with everything else. As an avid reader, I am intrigued by the depth of resources freely availabl12 months ago Read more
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Blog postWe seem to be forgetting what the science tells us. Perhaps it's the giddy enthusiasm or hope associated with being the first one to break the curse of an Alzheimer's disease cure. But let me remind you, we are not able to diagnose Alzheimer's disease. Not yet. We can speak in probabilities, probable Alzheimer's is as close as we can go. Yes there are biomarkers and brain tissue biopsies but if we don't know the causative pathway--what are we measuring exactly?
Fortune magazine earl2 years ago Read more -
Blog postI still dramatically arch an eyebrow when cures or proclamations in general are made about Alzheimer's disease. But when Peter Attia, MD weighs in--he has my attention. I am confident that you are able to Google with the best of them so hope you will do your due diligence and appreciate the insights and appropriate level of granularity he is able to deliver. I mention him here and here if you are short on time.
The Peter Attia Drive podcast with Richard Isaacson, MD is long and in d2 years ago Read more -
Blog postThere is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world--Carl Sagan The similarities between space travel to Mars and the latest attempts to discover a blockbuster monotherapeutic cure for Alzheimer's disease are (or should be) self evident.
On the space exploration frontier get those check books out to the tune of ~ 19 billion dollars. Can you even imagine what we could do to mitigate the environmental challenges here3 years ago Read more -
Blog postA few years ago I was looking for data. Not a strange occupation as I make my living as a data informed analyst and medical writer. But I always felt there had to be something driving the increase in chronic diseases in the general population. Not only the upward climb in reported rates of dementia but across the board. It seemed there was something. I thought maybe food policy was to blame. There are a lot of potential correlations to be examined. Why isn't this a larger priority?
3 years ago Read more -
Blog postWhat is going on here? A well-funded "volunteer" non-profit should do better. What is race a placeholder for? I am certain they know that risk is not determined by pigment. If there are social determinants of health--give them voice. If there are biologic measures, name them.3 years ago Read more
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Blog postThe news that Pfizer is re-allocating budget away from Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease is newsworthy. It is likely a smart move. The complexity of chronic metabolic derangement in older age combined with potential discoveries of mysterious lymphatic systems hidden within the dura mater should point to "innovation" away from a monotherapeutic cure. It is not sufficient, he argues, to simply collect and store massive amounts of data; they must be intelligently curated, and th3 years ago Read more
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Blog postEveryone is hurling content over the pay-wall. In a time when we should be diffusing knowledge, the monetization beckons and many move deeper into their echo chamber.
That is why my favorite read has been QuantaMagazine. Light-Triggered Genes Reveal the Hidden Workings of Memory saved my morning.I am a big Systems Thinker and you should be too. The cost of being a one-dimensional thinker plays out in the latest R&D efforts in Alzheimer's disease. Believe it or not--we are s3 years ago Read more -
Blog postBill Gates is making a bold move. I like his commitment--both financial and personal as well as his search for " a lot of ideas." I hope he hasn't spent the last year in the R&D drug focused echo-chamber because if he has, my enthusiasm will wane--quickly. "You have a nearly 50 percent chance of developing the disease if you live into your mid-80s. In the United States, it is the only cause of death in the top 10 without any meaningful treatments that becomes mo3 years ago Read more
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Books By Bonny P McClain
$5.99
Most writers aren't looking for platitudes or step by step guides to their craft. A shockingly honest portrayal of wild-but-true stories about writing in the evolving landscape of medicine--immediately useful insights from the crossroads of health policy, health economics, and clinical medicine.
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Paperback
Continuing Medical Education: What to do when good outcomes go bad (Content Media & Analytics Book 3)
Feb 15, 2016
$2.99
We currently measure how healthcare providers practice medicine and what clinical decisions are being made—how do we determine WHY?
Determining effect sizes by merging outcome data from groups of study participants obscures the reality that clinical interventions rarely work for everyone and under all circumstances. In large part, clinicians are unable to face that reality because they lack information about the biological, experiential and environmental sources of that heterogeneity, and the impact of that heterogeneity on clinical responses.
When an intervention known to be effective in study populations fails to work in a particular patient, clinicians therefore have little choice but to move to alternative interventions on the basis of pragmatic rules of thumb (heuristics).
Assessing knowledge or even behavior by evaluating responses to an isolated clinical presentation forces participant responses into false “finite” siloes not dissimilar to inclusion/exclusion criteria in industry clinical trials—not actually real world or relevant in clinical practice.
Since biological and social heterogeneity among trial participants interferes with the detection of true cause–effect relationships, controlled trials are carefully designed to minimize or eliminate heterogeneity's effects, primarily by aggregating the outcomes from many participants rather than drawing inferences from outcomes in individual persons.
This intentional ‘heterogeneity blindness’ in controlled trials has brought with it a progressive shift from qualitative documentation of the concrete to quantitative assessment of the abstract—sophisticated statistical inferences about summary effect size in average patients.
How do we create educational programs that are indeed measuring the appropriate outcomes? Do we want to limit our discussions to "educational" outcomes or is it possible to link learning objectives to meaningful patient-centric health outcomes?
Determining effect sizes by merging outcome data from groups of study participants obscures the reality that clinical interventions rarely work for everyone and under all circumstances. In large part, clinicians are unable to face that reality because they lack information about the biological, experiential and environmental sources of that heterogeneity, and the impact of that heterogeneity on clinical responses.
When an intervention known to be effective in study populations fails to work in a particular patient, clinicians therefore have little choice but to move to alternative interventions on the basis of pragmatic rules of thumb (heuristics).
Assessing knowledge or even behavior by evaluating responses to an isolated clinical presentation forces participant responses into false “finite” siloes not dissimilar to inclusion/exclusion criteria in industry clinical trials—not actually real world or relevant in clinical practice.
Since biological and social heterogeneity among trial participants interferes with the detection of true cause–effect relationships, controlled trials are carefully designed to minimize or eliminate heterogeneity's effects, primarily by aggregating the outcomes from many participants rather than drawing inferences from outcomes in individual persons.
This intentional ‘heterogeneity blindness’ in controlled trials has brought with it a progressive shift from qualitative documentation of the concrete to quantitative assessment of the abstract—sophisticated statistical inferences about summary effect size in average patients.
How do we create educational programs that are indeed measuring the appropriate outcomes? Do we want to limit our discussions to "educational" outcomes or is it possible to link learning objectives to meaningful patient-centric health outcomes?
Other Formats:
Paperback
Blueprint: a scalable healthcare data strategy
Dec 1, 2016
$2.99
Data, data, data...big data, small data, its everywhere. What is your data strategy? Are you a cast with a big net sort of professional? Create a big flat file and hope for the best?
Maybe you are a stealth data purveyor--harpoon in hand and a precise plan--ready to implement and analyze.
Between these two extremes we find a variety of strategies. Quite often it seems like everyone is speaking a secret language and you are left strumming your lips in doubt.
What if you had a guide to navigate the road to a better data blueprint? Ambient data is everywhere--are you listening?
Maybe you are a stealth data purveyor--harpoon in hand and a precise plan--ready to implement and analyze.
Between these two extremes we find a variety of strategies. Quite often it seems like everyone is speaking a secret language and you are left strumming your lips in doubt.
What if you had a guide to navigate the road to a better data blueprint? Ambient data is everywhere--are you listening?
Other Formats:
Paperback
Write Better Surveys. Period.
Jun 27, 2016
$5.99
Surveys should suck less--writing them, taking them, and learning from the data they collect. I am writing a book to change all that. Survey development and implementation remains the best way to gather knowledge from a sample that hopefully will provide information about a larger population.
Take heart, survey designers. The journey will be long, but our cause is just
Take heart, survey designers. The journey will be long, but our cause is just
Other Formats:
Paperback
$2.99
I want to say a few things up front. I don't have any answers--just the questions. The saying if you want better answers, ask better questions is the rule of thumb for disruptors or individuals or companies attempting to change the status quo. I am also going to go out on a limb and suggest that in healthcare, we are in need of revitalized status quo.
This book is an easy to use resource for writing specific and quantifiable program goals, presentations, or webinar agendas.
This book is an easy to use resource for writing specific and quantifiable program goals, presentations, or webinar agendas.
Other Formats:
Paperback
Improving Numeracy in Medicine
Dec 15, 2015
$5.99
Why numeracy? Resources about statistics are numerous. What we need is a travel guide to help navigate the larger statistical texts. We read about health literacy and initiatives to improve the understanding of complicated language reserved for discussing medicine. Patients are becoming shared-decision makers and we need to foster and clarify dialogue to improve the translation of research findings, health policy, medical education, and healthcare.
Should you need to be a statistician to navigate the medical literature? Aren't the clinical studies that drive evidence-based medicine meant to be consumed by clinicians and informed researchers?
Health literacy measures the ability to comprehend, evaluate, and negotiate the data to make informed healthcare decisions. Although we tend to think of health literacy as central to societal concerns, numeracy crosses both professional and patient populations. For example, peer-reviewed clinical research often discusses risk-benefit analyses without the clarification that “risk” is defined as both benefits and harms. How do we calculate the harms of treatment to arrive at an informed clinical decision central to the patient’s best interests, values, and wishes?
How does numeracy influence standard care? What does the data show us about screening healthy individuals upstream from actual medical necessity? What do the “results” in technical medical literature really tell us? Is the message scrambled by the media? We can’t consistently blame the pharmaceutical industry. They don’t write the prescriptions—doctors do. Let’s improve numeracy in medicine.
Should you need to be a statistician to navigate the medical literature? Aren't the clinical studies that drive evidence-based medicine meant to be consumed by clinicians and informed researchers?
Health literacy measures the ability to comprehend, evaluate, and negotiate the data to make informed healthcare decisions. Although we tend to think of health literacy as central to societal concerns, numeracy crosses both professional and patient populations. For example, peer-reviewed clinical research often discusses risk-benefit analyses without the clarification that “risk” is defined as both benefits and harms. How do we calculate the harms of treatment to arrive at an informed clinical decision central to the patient’s best interests, values, and wishes?
How does numeracy influence standard care? What does the data show us about screening healthy individuals upstream from actual medical necessity? What do the “results” in technical medical literature really tell us? Is the message scrambled by the media? We can’t consistently blame the pharmaceutical industry. They don’t write the prescriptions—doctors do. Let’s improve numeracy in medicine.
Other Formats:
Paperback
5 Sources for the Right Healthcare Data: Bigger isn't Always Better (Content Media and Analytics Book 1)
Apr 28, 2015
$7.99
A curated topic-specific book to help identify potential sources of freely available healthcare data for content media, white papers, blogs, brand or content marketing, funding proposals, or be-spoke content creation.
Data is everywhere and it seems that everyone has a handle on this new source of useable information—but do they? In healthcare especially much of the data is behind a firewall, proprietary and/or access is monetized as part of a business model or opportunity. Perhaps there are glimpses here and there visible at conferences or embedded in news articles but what do you do if you would like to analyze your own data?
Unless you have deep pockets and can afford the industry data access it isn’t likely that you are going to want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to access IMS data, a leader in the billion dollar pharmaceutical data industry.
I observed my bookshelf and although I have quite a few books about healthcare data I rely on only a chapter here and there from each book. That is where the idea for short chapter books specific to a business need was generated. I curated the most frequent questions from my blog at www.dataanddonuts.org and created a publication strategy for short topics as an introduction and a quick how-to resource. This format is also easily updated and can be integrated into a curated series based on your own level and interests.
Let’s see where we can find some useful data for our proposals, websites, corporate blogs, brand content, and digital communication strategies.
Data is everywhere and it seems that everyone has a handle on this new source of useable information—but do they? In healthcare especially much of the data is behind a firewall, proprietary and/or access is monetized as part of a business model or opportunity. Perhaps there are glimpses here and there visible at conferences or embedded in news articles but what do you do if you would like to analyze your own data?
Unless you have deep pockets and can afford the industry data access it isn’t likely that you are going to want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to access IMS data, a leader in the billion dollar pharmaceutical data industry.
I observed my bookshelf and although I have quite a few books about healthcare data I rely on only a chapter here and there from each book. That is where the idea for short chapter books specific to a business need was generated. I curated the most frequent questions from my blog at www.dataanddonuts.org and created a publication strategy for short topics as an introduction and a quick how-to resource. This format is also easily updated and can be integrated into a curated series based on your own level and interests.
Let’s see where we can find some useful data for our proposals, websites, corporate blogs, brand content, and digital communication strategies.
Other Formats:
Paperback
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