Medicare Cuts Payment to 774 Hospitals Over Patient Complications
The federal government has penalized 774 hospitals for having the highest rates of patient infections or other potentially avoidable medical complications. More
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Overcoming the Market Dominance of Hospitals
This Viewpoint reviews the conditions which incentivize consolidation of health systems, hospitals, and physician practices into entities that decrease health care quality and increase prices. More
Health insurance execs’ salaries grew faster than company revenue in 2020
A new report found that average executive pay among health insurers outpaced revenue growth by up to 10 percentage points in 2020. More
What Americans Don’t Know About Their Medications
People who have faced debilitating side effects say we need better warnings on drugs. The FDA hasn’t been enthusiastic. More
Caregivers are missing from the long Covid conversation
The U.S. health system is too overwhelmed to address long Covid. One asset is not being deployed against Covid-19: long-haulers' caregivers. More
Dying on the Waitlist
In Los Angeles County and around the country, doctors have had to decide who gets a lifesaving COVID-19 treatment and who doesn’t. More
U.S. life expectancy fell by a year in the first half of 2020, CDC report finds
The Covid-19 pandemic is likely responsible for “the majority of the decline,” said Elizabeth Arias, lead author of the report. More
EP310: The 2020 Shkreli Awards for the Worst Examples of Profiteering and Dysfunction in Health Care
"Covid was like a blinding flash, a glare of x-ray that revealed the flaws, fragmentation, and dysfunction going on the health care system," said Dr. Vikas Saini. "Most of this behavior is not illegal, it's merely unethical. That's why it's not enough to prosecute, we have to change the cultural norms in health care," said Shannon Brownlee. More
Dr. Bernard Lown, creator of 1st effective heart defibrillator, dies at 99
Bernard Lown, MD, a renowned cardiologist who played a pivotal role in the development of the first reliable heart defibrillator, died Feb. 16. "Bernard Lown was one of the greatest physicians of the last, or any century, and I was privileged to call him my teacher, colleague and friend," said Vikas Saini, MD, president of the Lown Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that advocates for civic leadership and accountability in healthcare founded by Dr. Lown in 1973. "He showed us what it meant to be a healer and a citizen of the world. His commitment to social justice and a radically better healthcare system illuminated his belief that medicine must exist beyond the clinic to be true to its highest calling." More
Opinion: To really lower health-care costs, look beyond prescription drugs
All health-care services must be scrutinized for waste. More
Latinos face barriers like fear, language in getting vaccine
From elderly Cuban Americans in Florida to farmworkers in California, Latinos face daunting barriers to getting COVID-19 vaccines, creating risks for public health as the coronavirus mutates and spreads. More
Statement on the death of Dr. Bernard Lown
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE See Also: Timeline of Dr. Lown’s Life Brookline, MA — Dr. Bernard Lown, pioneering cardiologist, humanitarian, and founder of the Lown Institute, died today at the age of 99. He was a remarkable clinician, scientist, and visionary who will be remembered long into the future. As a scientist, Dr. Lown did seminal […] More
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Bernard Lown Dies
A leading Harvard physician who shared in the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize has died at his home in Newton. The prize was for activism against nuclear weapons. But Dr. Bernard Lown had a vast array of accomplishments. Dr. Vikas Saini is a clinical cardiologist and president of the Lown Institute of Brookline. He joined WBUR's All Things Considered to explain why he believes Lown was one of the greatest physicians of all time. More
Bernard Lown, doctor at the vanguard of cardiac care, antiwar activist who shared Nobel Peace Prize, dies at 99
In 2012, he helped found the Lown Institute. The Brookline organization describes its mission as “to catalyze a grass-roots movement for transforming health care systems and improving the health of communities.” “Dr. Lown embodied a rare combination of technical skill, scientific acumen, and profound humanism,’' said Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute, in a statement. “His commanding yet deeply comforting presence allowed him to connect with his patients in a way that was truly dazzling to generations of young doctors in training at Harvard.’'
Association of Medicaid Expansion With Quality in Safety-Net Hospitals
This cohort study compares quality measures in safety-net hospitals between states with Medicaid expansion vs nonexpansion following implementation of the Affordable Care Act. More
Covid-19 shows how our hospital system is “separate and unequal”
An investigation of a hospital overwhelmed by Covid-19 in Los Angeles shows the vast inequalities between the safety net institutions and other hospitals in the area. More
Lack of Covid Data on People with Intellectual Disabilities ‘Comes With a Body Count’
People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are more likely to have medical conditions that make covid especially dangerous. More
The Case for Helping the World Get Vaccinated
By buying up the vast majority of available vaccines and not using government powers to ramp up production, wealthy countries, including the United States, are making it all but impossible for poorer countries the get their citizens vaccinated. That’s shortsighted. As long as large swaths of the globe remains unvaccinated, we all remain at risk from a virus that is free to mutate rapidly and is already proving capable of evading at least one vaccine. The Biden administration is going to have to decide what role the U.S. government will play to ensure that poorer nations get the vaccine quickly and affordably. If the United States and other wealthy countries do not find a way to increase production and lower prices, people around the world will die unnecessarily and U.S. economic and geopolitical interests will suffer. More
VIDEO: Hospital price transparency
On January 1, a new CMS rule on hospital price transparency went into effect. What does the new regulation do? How could it affect the cost of care? And are hospitals complying? Shannon and Vikas answer these questions on this week’s Lown Hospitals Q&A. More
Mental health professionals are the ones taking care of us: Who’s taking care of them?
USA TODAY spoke with half a dozen mental health workers who told us the pandemic has been the most challenging year of their professional lives. More