[coxmichael]

> broadly the analysis results in better outcomes or else there would be no economic incentive to facilitate medical research

This is true to a degree, but outcomes for real healthcare rely on much more than research, as you’ve indicated.

Documentation is part of that research, of course, and whether they have short-term or long-term effects for researchers’ ability to work out better treatment is relatively lossy.

Actual treatment also includes the rest of healthcare (training, hell, even their housing costs), and rules-based or centralised administrative systems backed by insurance don’t necessarily create the right environment for that information to be propagated more widely.

People training to be health workers don’t use the frequency or quality of medical research papers to decide whether to become a doctor.

I think there’s a view you can take on the information topology here that’s a little odd in how it’s currently set up — documentation for front-line workers and information wealth for researchers feels like it’s relatively polarised.