Facebook “Likes” Accurately Predict Hospital Mortality Rates

FOR EVERY 93 LIKES, MORTALITY DROPS 1%.

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It can be tough to pick a hospital. And while it’s tempting to just use some online database--to Yelp it, so to speak--every problem with online ratings systems is only exacerbated by the scale of human mortality. If I can’t trust Yelpers’ opinion on what’s authentic Szechuan cuisine, how can I possibly depend on their opinions of coronary artery bypass surgery?

A new study published in The American Journal of Medical Quality points to an unlikely solution to finding a good hospital: Facebook. After analyzing the 30-day mortality rates across 40 New York hospitals and cross-referencing their Facebook page likes, they found a strong correlation between more likes and lower mortality rates. From the study:

The findings suggest that the number of Facebook “Likes” is associated with hospital quality as measured by the 30-day mortality rate. Based on this data set, a 1 percentage point decrease in 30-day mortality corresponds with almost 93 more Facebook “Likes.” This is probably because Facebook “Likes” tap into levels of patient satisfaction, as the positive relationship between “Likes” and the patient recommendation variable suggest. In other words, people are less apt to “Like” a hospital if that hospital has higher 30-day mortality rates and more prone to “Like” a hospital if they would recommend it. This somewhat intuitive finding suggests that Facebook offers an additional resource, beyond surveys, to gauge the attitudes of patient populations.

Incredibly, Facebook likes were found to be a more accurate predictor of mortality rates than traditional patient surveys. This fact leads the study’s authors to go so far as to conclude that “the number of ‘Likes’ on a hospital’s Facebook page can be used as a proxy for patient satisfaction and an indicator of hospital quality.” It just goes to show how big data is poised to rock the world of health care. Well, that, and the next time you randomly like something on Facebook, it could actually save someone’s life. Sort of. (Not really.)

read the study here

Cheap Eats: How America Spends Money on Food

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Food is cheap and getting cheaper in America, unless you're poor

What It Would Look Like If Tide, Glad, and Nivea Ditched Product Packaging

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Think about the last product you purchased. It probably came in a lot of excess packaging. But why does packaging have to exist? In some situations it’s necessary for hygiene purposes, certainly, but designer Aaron Mickelson believes that it’s possible to remove all traces of packaging waste from certain products.

As part of his master’s thesis at Pratt University, dubbed the Disappearing Package, Mickelson created physical prototypes of waste-free packaging solutions for five popular products--Nivea bar soap, Twining’s tea bags, Tide laundry detergent (specifically Tide PODs), OXO POP containers, and Glad garbage bags. "I hope, at the end of the day, I have shown that sustainability can still be beautiful. I leave that up to my audience to decide," Mickelson told Wired.

Wealth Inequality Is a Problem, but How Do You Even Begin to Solve It?

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Europe in on a rampage against sky-scraping compensation packages. Months after France announced a new confiscatory top tax rate, the EU recently capped banker bonuses at twice their salary. This weekend, Switzerland voted to put historic restrictions on corporate pay. Two-thirds of a national referendum (in one of the finance capitals of the world!) voted to give shareholders the right to slash their executives' compensation and banned "golden parachutes" for outgoing executives. The new crime for paying a CEO too much money? As much as three years in jail or six years' salary in penalties. 

When Switzerland puts its foot down on rich bankers, you know something's wrong.

But that doesn't mean the Swiss solution is right. The typical argument against capping incomes for a job is intuitive. If you found out that your company capped salaries at $80,000, you'd be a risk to leave for the thousands of jobs that pay $81,000 and higher. Giving shareholders the right to cut compensation and banning golden parachutes worth $70 million are a category different from capping wages at $100,000. But banks throughout the EU and in Switzerland are protesting the change, saying their best workers will flee to Asia or New York where they can be paid their market wage. 

Maybe they're right. We just don't know yet. But it's notable that one of the richest countries in the world -- with the highest GDP per capita of any country with more than 7 million people -- is standing athwart this canyon of inequality saying "stop."

Maybe it was only a matter of time. The wealth inequality gap has been built by some factors we do control -- like governments' implicit and explicit subsidies of global finance -- and some factors we don't control, like globalization and technology making capital owners richer while they make unskilled workers replaceable. Both sides have numbers. The 1% has money. The 99% has people. Before the top-heavy returns of globalized capitalism get too out of hand, maybe we should think about some good solutions to wealth inequality before popular resentment leads to bad ones.