Is it time to prioritize pay equity in healthcare?
Hospitals are facing persistent staffing issues and many are in poor financial shape....but their CEOs keep getting bonuses. Could pay equity be the solution that stabilizes our hospitals? More
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A tale of two drugs: Accountability and evidence in Alzheimer’s treatments
An investigation of one Alzheimer's Disease drug and the approval of another offer lessons on accountability and evidence for new drug approvals. More
10 healthcare names get Shkreli Awards for bad behavior
"If we're ever going to get to the great health system that Americans deserve, we have to call out bad behavior," Vikas Saini, MD, president of the Lown Institute, said. "The Shkreli Awards are a mirror that's hard to look into, but we've got to do it." More
North Texas Home to Two of the Greediest Stories in Healthcare
2022 Shkreli Awards: Dishonorable Mentions
Last week, we hosted the 6th annual Shkreli Awards, calling out the worst profiteers and dysfunction in the healthcare system in 2022. In a perfect world, these awards wouldn’t be necessary. In our world, we have a plethora of candidates to consider. More
2022 Shkreli Awards call out the worst, most dysfunctional players in healthcare
“If we’re ever going to get to the great health system that Americans deserve, we have to call out bad behavior,” Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute, said in a statement. “The Shkreli Awards are a mirror that’s hard to look into, but we’ve got to do it.” More
Medicare Advantage Plans Take Top Spot in Shkreli Awards
Lown Institute president Vikas Saini, MD, told MedPage Today that this year's list reads like "a tragic comedy of grift and profiteering." If the actions of these companies and individuals seem to be worse than in past years, Saini said that's because governmental agencies and media organizations appear to be "more vigilant in calling out bad actors." More
How do we desegregate the hospital system?
A new series of articles on healthcare segregation provides a call to action and a way forward for all actors in the healthcare system looking to improve racial and economic equity More
PRESS RELEASE: Healthcare’s biggest baddies named and blamed in 2022 Shkreli Awards
From massive insurance fraud to a dentist that intentionally broke patients’ teeth, here are this year’s worst examples of greed and dysfunction in healthcare. More
21 health systems with smallest CEO-to-worker pay ratios
Amid a wave of intensified criticism of hospital CEO pay at large, one source continues to pay close attention to the ratio of executive compensation to worker wages at more than 300 health systems. That source is Lown Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that measures hospitals' and health systems' social responsibility through 53 metrics related to inclusivity, pay equity, community benefit, care value and outcomes. More
Community power: A missing piece for health policy
Can community empowerment solve persistent population health disparities that other strategies have failed to fix? More
How a Sprawling Hospital Chain Ignited Its Own Staffing Crisis
Because of its nonprofit status, Ascension avoids more than $1 billion a year in federal, state and local taxes, according to the Lown Institute, a health care think tank. Until the pandemic, Ascension was consistently profitable, earning hundreds of millions a year. More
Hospital policies that exacerbate the staffing crisis
While the pandemic was a breaking point for many healthcare workers, some hospital systems were cutting staff well before 2020... More
Price transparency comes to the insurance market…but there’s a catch
Insurers are required to publish their negotiated prices for all services. The problem is, there's too much data... More
Where have all the nurses gone?
After enduring years of stressful and heartbreaking work through the Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare workers are quitting in droves. What can we do about the healthcare staffing crisis? More
Viewpoint: Closing pediatric units is short-sighted and reflects a broken system
While hospital systems focus on more lucrative adult care operations, often sacrificing pediatric care in the process, the consequences of such decisions are often ignored, Brenna Miller, a health communications specialist at think tank the Lown Institute, wrote on its site Dec. 5. More
Hospitals criticized for ‘low-value’ procedures
The Lown Institute of Needham has long argued that hospitals perform way too many procedures it has identified as being low-value, meaning they offer little to no clinical benefit to patients and, in many cases, are more likely to harm them than help them. More
How some hospitals put up barriers to financial assistance
It's the time of year where most of us are getting into the "giving spirit." But recent investigations show that some hospitals are instead putting up obstacles to financial assistance. More
Pediatrics and profits: Why children’s hospital units are closing
Pediatric units are closing across the country, leaving parents and their sick kids without easy access to healthcare. Why is this happening, and what are the long-term consequences? More
Nine NYC hospitals received $1.2 billion in tax breaks, invested less than half in community: report
The Lown Institute calls for greater transparency and accountability. More