kwokfu:

I love great charts. A great chart tells a story with a balance of clarity, beauty, and parsimony. Kaiser Fung (@junkcharts) shares two such charts on the relationship between national per capita health expenditures and life expectancy. These data aren’t new, but they are beautifully presented here to tell a very clear story with such elegant simplicity.

I wish I made more charts like these. It is their simplicity which makes them so artfully compelling.

toynachin-health-technology:

Independa‘s service allows family and other caregivers to monitor the well-being of their elderly relatives, and gives the elderly easy access services they need. The company just closed a $1.6 million round of funding from private investors and Southern California venture capital firms Miramar Venture Partners and City Hill Ventures.

cranquis:

Some of the saddest cases I’ve seen in my career are patients with sudden catastrophic illness or trauma for whom their families are expected to make health-care decisions — and the families don’t know what the unconscious/critically-ill patient would want. Families are torn apart, arguing over whether to continue all life-prolonging interventions, vs focusing on keeping the patient comfortable.

You may think you’re too young and healthy to need an Advance Directive, but massive trauma or overwhelming infection can happen to anyone. Do your family a favor and check out this website, which provides the simplest End of Life Wishes discussion guide I’ve ever seen, and includes links for creating an Advance Directive. Use it, and pass it on!