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Michael Barnett

H-index: 52
Political science 62%
Sociology 22%

Reposted by: Michael Barnett

archive.org
🐹 Before viral videos on TikTok or YouTube, there was Hampsterdance.

Full of dancing hamster GIFs & a sped-up tune, it became one of the internet’s first viral hits.

You can still dance to it on the #WaybackMachine ➡️ web.archive.org/web/19991222...

#Wayback1T

🧵
mlbarnett.bsky.social
sounds like a repeat experiment is coming soon? i need you here for moral support though
mlbarnett.bsky.social
well, beggars can't be choosers these days. X is not any better 😭
aschwartz.bsky.social
Today's Nobel Prize in Medicine went to the discoverers of regulatory T-cells. How could this discovery about our immune systems change the world?

Here is one possible way: leading to treatments for terrible neurological diseases. (1/3)
rkwadhera.bsky.social
Medicaid work requirements will soon be implemented nationwide

Our new @bmj.com study shows what happened to insurance coverage and jobs when Georgia rolled them out in 2023. bit.ly/3VE1QsK

Featured in @nytimes.com #medsky
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/w...
Medicaid Work Requirements Don’t Boost Employment, Study Shows
www.nytimes.com
jama.com
Clinicians can enhance patient understanding by using numerical data instead of verbal probabilities, consistent denominators, absolute risk comparisons, and clear context for unfamiliar data types.

ja.ma/4pAC3zi
JAMA Insights: How to Communicate Medical Numbers. It outlines recommendations for conveying risk, adjusting numerators, communicating probability changes, using visualizations, and providing context, with examples of problematic and preferred communication styles.
thomasp85.com
I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN.

It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package.

Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats
ggplot2 4.0.0
A new major version of ggplot2 has been released on CRAN. Find out what is new here.
www.tidyverse.org

Reposted by: Michael Barnett

lck303.bsky.social
I worked as a rehab nurse liaison for years, and anecdotally, can confirm what your research revealed. Another interesting avenue, look at comparing Medicare Advantage-covered IP days across the different insurance providers. I would presume a noticeable difference would present between the carriers
mlbarnett.bsky.social
Overall, we estimate that longer hospital stays for Medicare Advantage patients are contributing to close to 2 million extra hospital bed days occupied by people who don't need to be there any more annually. This is a huge waste and bad for patient care.

Why is this happening?
mlbarnett.bsky.social
When you break things down, the one group with higher lengths of stay are patients enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans - in particular, those going to a nursing home for rehab.

The likelihood that these patients stay in the hospital for ≥14 days increased by ~30% from 2018 to 2023.
mlbarnett.bsky.social
We studied Medicare hospital claims from 2017 to 2023 and found something striking.

The likelihood that any hospital stay in Medicare was longer than 14, 21 or 28 days (a VERY long time for a hospital stay)has gone up substantially since the pandemic and stayed high. There's a pattern, though ...
mlbarnett.bsky.social
New paper w/ Brian McGarry, Ashvin Gandhi, and Drew Wilcock in @jamainternalmed.com!

Hospitals are complaining across the US that patients are "stuck" waiting for rehab beds at nursing homes when they are medically stable and ready for discharge. What is going on??

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Question Has hospital length of stay increased more for Medicare
Advantage beneficiaries than for traditional Medicare beneficiaries
since the COVID-19 pandemic?Findings In this cohort study involving more than 89 million
hospitalizations from 2017 to the third quarter of 2023, Medicare
Advantage beneficiaries experienced disproportionately greater
increases in extended hospital stays, especially among those
discharged to skilled nursing facilities.Meaning These findings suggest that the Medicare Advantage
plan design and practices may contribute to hospital discharge
delays, with implications for patient outcomes and hospital
capacity as enrollment continues to rise.
matthewcobb.bsky.social
Co-discoverer of reverse transcriptase at 32, Nobel Prize at 37, played a key role at the 1975 Asilomar comference.
David Baltimore, Nobel-Winning Molecular Biologist, Dies at 87
www.nytimes.com
adrianna.bsky.social
Ben Sommers and I have a new piece up at @jamahealthforum.com on how to think about generalizing lessons from unwinding to looming new Medicaid red tape requirements.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

We appreciate support from the @commonwealthfund.org for this work!
apha.org
New statement: IDSA, APHA and partners call for RFK Jr. to resign: "Our country needs leadership that will promote open, honest dialogue — not disregard decades of lifesaving science, spread misinformation, reverse medical progress and decimate programs that keep us safe." bit.ly/3JOgDya
JOINT STATEMENT CALLING FOR SECRETARY KENNEDY RESIGNATION  Infectious Diseases Society of America  

American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology 

American Academy of HIV Medicine  

American Association of Immunologists 

American Public Health Association  

American Society for Microbiology 

American Society for Virology  

Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC)  

AVAC   

Camenzind Solutions LLC  

Fast-Track Cities Institute  

ID Care 

International Association of Providers of AIDS Care  

NTM Info & Research  

Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society   

Peggy Lillis Foundation 

Seattle Children’s Research Institute  

Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 

Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists (SIDP) 

Stop TB USA  

Treatment Action Group 
idsainfo.bsky.social
As national medical, scientific, public health and patient organizations, we call for the resignation of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to ensure the health of the American people.

Our statement: https://bit.ly/45LeJHi
davidimiller.bsky.social
🧪 And House appropriators say: no cuts to NIH budget!

House subcommittee version just came out (link below). Holds NIH flat at $48 billion.

To be clear: this is far from over. But a good sign that science still matters across both sides of aisle.

YOUR VOICE MATTERS!!

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