How conflicts of interest put new mothers at risk
How undisclosed conflicts of interest may have put millions of pregnant and postpartum women at risk... More
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Summer updates in conflicts of interest research
Recent developments in research on financial conflicts of interest in medicine are helping health care watchdogs hold health professionals and institutions accountable for their financial relationships with industry. Read on! More
Rating the Raters: An Evaluation of Publicly Reported Hospital Quality Rating Systems
The numerous currently available public hospital quality rating systems frequently offer conflicting results, which may mislead stakeholders relying on the ratings to identify top-performing hospitals. Given that there is no gold standard for how a rating system should be constructed or perform and no objective way to compare the rating systems, we evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of four major public hospital quality rating systems based on our experience as physician scientists with methodological expertise in health care quality measurement. More
Why we need a national health information highway
Our piecemeal approach to health information exchange hasn't worked in most places in the US. How do we get on a better path? More
I’m an ICU nurse. I know I need an end-of-life directive. So why can’t I bring myself to write it?
Few want to think about their own deaths. And forms rarely capture the complexity of real-life medical decision-making. But there are ways to tackle these and other roadblocks.
Burned-out doctors may be more prone to racial bias
The Washington Post More
Human Connection
We must prioritize clinician-patient relationships to create the best environment for healing. More
Health Equity
Everyone deserves the opportunity to live a healthy life, regardless of where they live, how much they make, or who they are. More
Low-value Care
We must ensure that patients get all the care they need, and none that they do not. More
Accountability
The driving factor in health decisions should be what’s best for the patient, not the corporation. More
One in twenty patients exposed to preventable harm, new analysis finds
Health care providers still have a long way to go when it comes to reducing preventable harm, especially harm from medications. More
Antibiotics and Anticholinergics: Not always as safe as they seem
Overuse of antibiotics and some over-the-counter medications can have serious consequences, especially for older patients. More
Some people should stop being screened for cancer. Convincing them isn’t always easy
The catch-cancer-early-save-a-life trope is a bit misleading: the benefit of some tests is smaller than I had initially thought. Say 1,000 women have biennial mammograms between the ages of 50 and 74. Those 12,000 mammograms would prevent seven deaths from breast cancer. Yearly PSA testing among 1,000 men between the ages of 55 and 69 would lead to one to two fewer deaths from prostate cancer. Yet many of these patients are wary when I broach the idea of stopping screening. More
Report Sounds Alarm on Medication Overload Among Older Americans
Experts on aging are sounding the alarm about another U.S. drug crisis: Too many older adults taking too many medications. This trend is leading to a surge in adverse drug events (ADE) over the past two decades. The rate of emergency department visits by older adults for adverse drug events doubled between 2006 and 2014. That’s a problem as serious as the opioid crisis, but whose scope appears to remain virtually invisible to families, patients, policymakers and many clinicians, according to a recent report by the Lown Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Brookline, Mass. More
Ashley’s Sample Post
An example of an abstract. Enter an abstract here. More
Robotic Surgical Tool, Not Medical Evidence, Drives Free Hernia Screenings
Hospitals say such screenings provide valuable education about treatment options for the common medical condition, in which part of the intestine protrudes through a weak spot in the abdominal wall. But no research has been done on hernia screenings, and some experts worry that these outreach efforts — some of which showcase da Vinci robotic surgery devices made by Intuitive Surgical based in Sunnyvale, Calif. — could lead people to get potentially harmful operations they don’t need. More
What we could save by investing in community conditions
What can communities gain from investing in nutrition, housing, and transportation services? A new "Return on Investment Calculator" can help organizations answer that question. More
How More State Health Care Spending Can Lead to Worse Health
Squeezed by rising health care costs, states have shifted money away from “social spending” on programs like public education, public health services, housing assistance, food assistance and income support. That shift “is having dire and long-lasting consequences for the nation’s health and community well-being,” warns a new report from the Lown Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for affordable health care. More
PRESS RELEASE: Report shows California trades spending on vital community conditions that keep people healthy for propping up a sick-care system
Report finds health care spending grew 146 percent in the past decade—wasting billions in the process on overpriced services and unnecessary care—while spending on community conditions grew by just 39 percent. More
California’s health care spending is actually hurting our health, researchers say
In a report released Tuesday, community health advocates at Oakland’s Well Being Trust warned California’s leaders that they must curb prices and waste in health care spending. More