Rural patient and provider perceptions of telehealth implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Understanding perceptions of telehealth  implementation from patients and providers can improve the utility and sustainability of these programs, particularly in under-resourced rural settings. The purpose of this study was to evaluate both patient and provider perceptions of telehealth visits in a large rural healthcare system during the COVID-19 pandemic. To promote sustainability of telehealth approaches, we also assessed whether the percentage of missed appointments differed between in-person and telehealth visits.

The fallacy of inscrutability.

Contrary to the criticism that mysterious, unaccountable black-box software systems threaten to make the logic of critical decisions inscrutable, we argue that algorithms are fundamentally understandable pieces of technology. Software systems are designed to interact with the world in a controlled way and built or operated for a specific purpose, subject to choices and assumptions. Traditional power structures can and do turn systems into opaque black boxes, but technologies can always be understood at a higher level, intensionally in terms of their designs and operational goals and extensionally in terms of their inputs, outputs and outcomes.

A comparison of outcomes between the traditional laparoscopic and totally robotic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass procedures.

Background Roux-en-Y gastric bypass is considered to be the gold standard of bariatric procedures. Minimally invasive surgical techniques have been demonstrated to decrease recovery time and provide for favorable cosmetic outcomes. The drawback of traditional laparoscopic techniques for the surgeon comes in the form of 2D monitoring of not always intuitive instrument manipulation.

Resolution of diabetes after bariatric surgery among predominantly African-American patients: race has no effect in remission of diabetes after bariatric surgery.

Background: The aim of this study was to assess the relative efficacy in diabetes remission among predominantly African-American patients who have undergone one of the three different types of bariatric surgical procedures.

Methods: A total of 597 morbidly obese patients underwent one of the three bariatric surgical procedures at Harper University Hospital, Detroit, Michigan from 2008 to 2011. Of the three procedures, 203 (34%) patients had laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, 264 (44.