On the 101st birthday of Dr. Lown, hear from Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha on what we need from clinicians to ensure that more kids can celebrate more birthdays. More
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the Michigan-based pediatrician who exposed the Flint water crisis, has been named the winner of the inaugural Bernard Lown Award for Social Responsibility. More
After getting spinal fusion surgery, Lisa French was charged $300,000 after the hospital had quoted her $1,300 for the surgery. When she was unable to pay, the nonprofit hospital sued. As the spinal fusion industry booms, this case shows another risk of unnecessary surgeries -- getting overcharged and potentially sued by hospitals. More
Texas ranked 47th of 50 states in avoiding unnecessary procedures, according to a report by the Lown Institute, a Massachusetts think tank, which found that hospitals across the country performed about 100,000 unnecessary surgeries in 2020. Unnecessary procedures cost the health care system as much as $101 billion a year in wasted spending, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. More
Should we recommend earlier prostate cancer screening for Black men, who have a higher risk of prostate cancer mortality? We examine the pros and cons of this question raised by a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine. More
A telehealth company's downfall sheds light on the overprescription of stimulants to ADHD patients More
Last year, the Lown Institute, a nonprofit healthcare think tank based in Needham, Massachusetts, reported that hospitals performed more than 1 million unnecessary tests and procedures on Medicare patients from 2016 to 2018. Unnecessary tests and procedures can put patients at risk of complications and drive up the cost of care. More
What's the evidence behind PCI, and why do hospitals keep doing these procedures? We revisit this issue with a look back at research and interviews over last few years to give you the answers. More
The Bernard Lown Award for Social Responsibility was created in honor of Dr. Lown after his death in 2021, recognizes young clinicians who stand out for their bold leadership in social justice, environmentalism, global peace, or other humanitarian efforts. More
Despite the risks posed by COVID-19, hospitals continued to perform eight common, low-value procedures during the first year of the pandemic at a rate similar to 2019, according to a Lown Institute analysis published Tuesday. More
For the ranking, Lown examined service use measures at more than 3,100 hospitals. Data in the ranking came from the Medicare claims database and spanned 2018 to 2020. Eight common procedures — including hysterectomy for benign disease, coronary stents for stable heart disease and spinal fusion for low back pain — were measured. Four tests were also considered. Hospitals with the capacity to do four or more of the services were ranked. More
U.S. hospitals performed more than 100,000 surgeries on older patients during the first year of the pandemic, according to a new Lown Institute analysis. The healthcare think tank relied on Medicare claims data and analyzed eight common low-value procedures. It called the 100,000 procedures unnecessary and potentially harmful in a press release. It found that between March and December 2020, among the most-performed surgeries were coronary stents and back surgeries. More
In the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, did hospitals curb unnecessary and potentially harmful services? Watch the video of the roundtable discussion on overuse during Covid-19 to find out! More
The nation’s hospitals performed more than 100,000 unnecessary and potentially harmful procedures on older patients between March and December 2020, according to a new analysis by the Lown Institute. More
How can we ensure that nonprofit hospitals are paying their fair share? What policy avenues or partnerships have worked in the past? More
Overprescribing of antibiotics for Medicare patients with Covid-19 was rampant in the first year of the pandemic, research from the CDC finds. More
A recent report finds that hospitals with higher scores on the Lown Hospitals Index equity metrics also perform worse on certain preventable outcomes and patient safety metrics. More
The United States has the worst maternal mortality rate amongst high-income nations - and it’s getting worse. More
An investigation into the FDA's "breakthrough" device designation shows that devices are being approved based on little evidence, with high potential for profit to device-makers. More
Two-thirds of hospitals in the U.S. are classified as non-profits, yet there is a huge disconnect between the billions of dollars of tax exemptions that many of these institutions receive and how much of those savings goes back into community investment and charity care, as a recent study from the Lown Institute found. More