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.
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Enjoy these Shkreli Award "dishonorable mentions" — nominees that didn't quite make the top ten, but are worth calling out nonetheless.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 “This drug should be withdrawn from the market immediately.”
The doctors and scientists who signed the statement also agreed to provide their expertise to support the filing of a citizen petition, a formal process to seek reversal of the F.D.A.’s decision. The petition will be filed by the Right Care Alliance, a coalition of clinicians, patients and community members, which is also circulating a pledge for physicians who promise not to prescribe Aduhelm and for patients and family members who say they will not request it.
Dr. Vikas Saini, chairman of the Right Care Alliance and president of the Lown Institute, a health care think tank, said that while the citizen petition process can take months or years, it can prompt F.D.A. action.
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A recently-released Congressional committee report on drug prices reveals some outrageous business practices by pharma -- here's what they found.
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The 2021 hospital price transparency rule may not end the price confusion for patients, but it's still a valuable change-- here's why...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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How can we improve hospital cost efficiency to get better outcomes for a lower cost? Watch the video recording of our launch event to see the discussion.
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A recent study examines insurer-negotiated prices for ten expensive drugs at the 20 top US News & World Report hospitals.
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First-ever ranking examines costs at 3,000 hospitals, identifying $8 billion in potential Medicare savings BOSTON, MA — A new analysis identifies the most cost-efficient hospitals in America and highlights how potentially billions of dollars could be saved in the nation’s Medicare program. The analysis from the Lown Institute, a health care think tank, uncovered big […]
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Has pharma cracked the secret code to profit through cancer drugs? A recent study takes a closer look at the impact of cancer drug prices on pharma revenues.
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“The financial realities for hospitals are at odds with other things we might want hospitals to do,” study co-creator Shannon Brownlee said during the release of the Lown Institute Index for Social Responsibility. “The real goal is to start seeing hospitals in a different light.”
Dr. Vikas Saini, the Lown Institute president, said the rankings are not designed for consumers to decide where to schedule their next elective procedure, but rather for informed citizens to think about the public good hospitals ought to provide in exchange for the tax benefits and privileged status they receive in the community.
“We want them to think about these rankings more like: ‘What kind of health care system do we have, and is that the one I want for myself, my community and my country?’” Dr. Saini said. “I don’t think we want a system that has no soul, even if we live forever.”
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When examining 3,641 private nonprofit hospitals for its rankings, Lown looked beyond the usual metrics used to evaluate hospitals. It sought to encourage these organizations to be more responsible and accountable to the communities they serve, said Dr. Vikas Saini, president of Lown Institute.
“The reason our rankings matter is because, as citizens, all of us have a huge stake in how high quality, how affordable and how just our health care system is,” Saini said. “We’re reporting measures that do all of that.”
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Only 75 hospitals achieved an “A” grade across all three categories used to determine social responsibility: equity, value and outcomes. None of the top 20 U.S. News & World Report hospitals made the honor roll, despite scoring well for value and outcomes.
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Only one California hospital ranked among the 10 most socially responsible hospitals in the United States: Tiny Oroville Hospital, which landed at No. 4 this year on the Lown Institute Hospitals Index.
The hospital serves a large number of Medi-Cal beneficiaries and patients with low education levels, according to the report released Tuesday by the Lown Institute, while also excelling at preventing patient errors and re-admissions, keeping mortality rates low and quality clinical outcomes and running an efficient operation.
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The Cleveland Clinic, the second-best hospital in the nation as ranked by U.S. News and World Report, ranks so poorly in equity metrics that it failed to crack the United States' top 500 hospitals when "social responsibility" was taken into account.
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