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
Amid the experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an opportunity for boards of nonprofit hospitals to rethink how their CEOs are paid, particularly compared to the staff at their facilities, representatives with the Lown Institute wrote in a Feb. 10 article published in Health Affairs. The Lown Institute, a nonpartisan healthcare think tank, examined the gap between the pay of hospital staff and the CEO, as well as the implications of it. More
What are we rewarding hospital CEOs for -- and what metrics could drive their salaries on instead? In an recent piece in Health Affairs Forefront, Vikas Saini, Judith Garber, and Shannon Brownlee from the Lown Institute share findings from the Lown Hospitals Index on pay equity at nonprofit hospitals. More
Deaths in high-income countries have largely become "medicalized," moving more and more into the purview of the health care system. What are the implications of this change for families and for health systems around the world? The Lancet Commission on the Value of Death recently released a report addressing the medicalization of death and why it matters. More
A group of advocates has been sounding the alarm about the risk of side effects from benzodiazepines, even when taken as directed. An upcoming documentary tells their stories. More
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.