What the E!

We are switching 401k providers at work.  The switch is actually a good thing; vesting is happening sooner and matches are happening during each payroll cycle.  All great improvements!

However, the new options for investing are not award winners.  We had the normal visit from an investment adviser who claims to have a fiduciary relationship to us.  I think the adviser is a decent guy, just trying to make a living, but it is hard to believe that all his choices for mutual funds are going to be great.  He even said in the meeting that he will on a quarterly basis change out “under performing” funds.  He didn’t mention that chasing fund performance has been proven to be a very poor strategy.

So if you follow the link it sums up a bunch of really good academic research about active fund management.  For those of us who would like to follow this strategy, we strongly asked for a couple of low cost index funds.  I think we might get a couple, but we will see.

The best investment advice you’ll never get | San Francisco online

What if some one told you that they could save thousands of lives, implement the change in two years, and it would only cost $2 million dollars.  Well that is exactly what a new approach to medicine is suggesting.

In many of the more common (not simple) procedures that take place in our hospitals the “best practices” are fairly well documented.  You need to do steps 1 through XYZ to ensure the best outcomes, reduce infection, limit the number of days in the hospital, risk of serious complications and reduce the overall cost of care.

We all assume that our doctors, nurses, and the rest of the hospital staff are giving us the best care possible.  However, this isn’t in the always the case.  Check out these two articles below and see what they have to say.  They are a little scary in how basic steps are not being taken to improve care, but also the pioneering efforts of a few groups to get changes made.

Annals of Medicine: The Checklist: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

In Bid for Better Care, Surgery with a Warranty