Every day, 750 adults age 65 or older are hospitalized for serious side effects from a medication, according to the Lown Institute. One Lown Institute study found that you are 88 percent more likely to seek care for a drug complication or side effect if you take five or more medications. Other research shows that your fall risk increases 7 percent for each medication you take. More
Will devices like the Apple Watch that continuously monitor heart rhythm reduce rates of stroke? The evidence still isn't there, the USPSTF finds. More
To reduce harmful overmedication, we need to give doctors and patients opportunities to deprescribe. One pharmacy benefit manager has already started providing prescription checkups for their members -- here's how their program is working so far. More
After CMS restricted access to Aduhelm, Biogen and the Alzheimer's Association called the decision discriminatory. Here's why we're skeptical... More
The Medsafer study shows how clinical decision tools can help doctors deprescribe more in the hospital. More
MGB's continuing expansion raises questions about the underlying values of nonprofit hospitals. If you’re a hospital with tax-exempt status, “you could be asking, ‘what are you doing locally for the community?‘ ” Saini told me. “Or, you can figure out where there are paying customers and build a clinic.” On one hand, MGB simply embodies the market-driven spirit of American health care: “They have to find revenue, and the revenue is fragmented in terms of geography and social class,” said Saini. More
New research from Johns Hopkins evaluates overuse at more than 600 health systems. How do their results compare to those of the Lown Hospitals Index? More
Enjoy these Shkreli Award "dishonorable mentions" — nominees that didn't quite make the top ten, but are worth calling out nonetheless. More
A top ten list of the worst examples of profiteering and dysfunction in health care, named for Martin Shkreli, the price-hiking "pharma bro" that everyone loves to hate. More
Brigham is among the worst of more than 3,000 US hospitals in providing community benefits like health education and clinics, according to the Lown Institute, a Needham-based health care think tank. Nonprofit hospitals like the Brigham, with tax-exempt status, should not be trying to “suck up wealth in other countries to subsidize unaffordable health care here,” said Dr. Vikas Saini, Lown’s president. Brigham’s Evergrande project, he said, “would probably be the most egregious example of what we have been talking about.” “This is catering to elites, and the elites didn’t show up,” he said.
A group of Alzheimer’s experts and health advocates called on the Food and Drug Administration to pull Aduhelm off the market and said they were supporting an effort to file a formal petition with the agency to withdraw it. “The F.D.A.’s decision to approve Aduhelm is indefensible in both scientific and clinical terms,” said a statement signed by 18 scientists, most of them doctors. “This drug should be withdrawn from the market immediately.”
A recently-released Congressional committee report on drug prices reveals some outrageous business practices by pharma -- here's what they found. More
The 2021 hospital price transparency rule may not end the price confusion for patients, but it's still a valuable change-- here's why... More
On December 9, 1985, Dr. Bernard Lown and Dr. Yevgeni Chazov were about to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, for their work uniting doctors against nuclear war. Lown and Chazov had no idea they would be saving a life that day. More
Being able to do an experiment over again and confirm the results is actually a crucial aspect of science, called reproducibility. Unfortunately, a shockingly large proportion of cancer biology studies we do may not be reproducible, a new study shows. More
The White House recently announced their first Maternal Health Day of Action. We take a look at what's in the plan, what's promising, and what's missing... More
Recent research on racial and socioeconomic health disparities shows how far we still have to go to have better health for all. More
Which hospitals got the largest slice of the federal relief pie? Two recent studies examine the impact of this massive funding influx on hospital finances. More
Many cancer patients experience financial toxicity due to the high cost of care -- and low-value services play a role, new study shows. More
A recent Reuters investigation found that a campaign to lower the A1c target for diabetes was driven largely by pharmaceutical companies, to create a bigger market for their new blood sugar-lowering drugs. More