In America's cancer centers, where many patients go for specialized cancer treatment, prostate screening policies do not always align with evidence-based recommendations. More
Mental health apps designed to improve access to care may be driving overdiagnosis and overmedication, a recent investigation finds. More
In St. Louis and Kansas City, the vast majority of their hospitals land at the extremes of our inclusivity scale,” said Vikas Saini. “Some are super over-serving, if you will, black and Hispanic and poor populations, and others are really under-serving, and there are not many that are kind of in the middle.” Saini said in order to have fair, quality and equitable health care for everybody, we have to change the way we organize and pay for hospital care. “It can’t be this kind of market competition, revenue-seeking model,” he said. Saini said he dreams of a health care system where hospitals are given a budget to care for an entire community, rather than on a patient-by-patient basis. More
A new report found that hospitals in 15 large U.S. cities — led by Detroit and St. Louis — were highly segregated, but care for COVID-19 was more equitable. “Hospitals deserve praise for stepping up to the plate and being more inclusive during COVID, but we need them to be more inclusive all the time,” said Saini in a statement. More
Some 50 percent of hospitals in the United States are racially segregated, meaning the patient populations they serve do not reflect the demographics of their communities, according to the latest analysis from healthcare thinktank Lown Institute which was emailed to journalists. This imperils national efforts for addressing health equity. More
Lown Institute Analysis Shows Hospitals Are More Equitable When Caring for COVID Patients. More
There've been a variety of awards in recent years for the organization now known collectively as Bitterroot Health. But the latest from the LOWN Institute is unique, rating 3,000 hospitals and health care systems on criteria such as social responsibility with regard to cost, healthy outcomes and benefits to a community. More
During this 33 minute conversation Dr. Saini and Ms. Garber discuss CEO bonuses during the pandemic, discuss generally CEO compensation as an outlier in the nonprofit sector, discuss the substance of their research findings including what explains CEO compensation and conclude by discussing what criteria should be used in calculating CEO compensation. More
The health care industry will soon be offering elective surgery where Americans once bought their underpants. “There is a certain logic to it,” said Vikas Saini, a cardiologist who is head of the Lown Institute, a think tank. He sees it as part of a general trend “towards the commercialisation of healthcare”. Dr Saini thinks that malls in wealthier suburbs might hold a particular allure for hospitals. “The most desirable patient is the upscale patient who is healthy, who has commercial insurance and who can get some kind of elective surgery, like their knee or something, that’s very lucrative,” he said. More
Do nonprofit hospitals have higher unreimbursed Medicaid costs than for-profit hospitals? More
Why is it equitable to take race into account in healthcare in some cases but not others? The answer lies in the distinction between race and racism. More
Join us March 17 at 1pm as we announce the most racially inclusive hospitals in America, and discuss the impact of Covid on hospital inclusivity. More
According to stats from the Lown Institute, 1 in 250 Americans go to a hospital emergency room each year due to an adverse drug event. That’s millions of people going to the hospital due to adverse drug events. What a big problem. More
A newly-developed metric of low-value prescribing practices helps fill an important gap in the research of overuse metrics. More
As many as 25% of screening colonoscopies are not consistent with national guidelines, according to a recent systematic review. More
Low back pain is one of the most common health problems in the world and one of the most common causes of overuse -- but there is some good news. More
Patient advocates and researchers uncover concerning patterns in financial relationships between industry funding and patient advocacy organizations. More
The pandemic has brought hospital finances and pay scales to greater attention as burned out healthcare workers call for higher pay after two years of COVID-19, though hospital CEOs have faced scrutiny for years over sky-high compensation. "Today, hospital boards compare the compensation of their CEOs not to other community-based nonprofits but to their for-profit publicly traded hospital CEO peers, who themselves are compared to leaders in the largest industrial and financial companies trading on Wall Street," the researchers said. "Since many boards set CEO salary by obtaining 'comparable' salary data, this becomes an ever-spiraling upward cycle." More