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Pharmaceutical marketing is a significant factor in the growing public health crisis of medication overload, which puts millions of older adults at risk of preventable harm and premature death. This issue brief provides recommendations to reduce pharmaceutical industry influence by limiting pharma sales rep visits to clinicians and direct-to-consumer advertising.
This issue brief provides recommendations for clinical practice guidelines and electronic health records that would give clinicians the information they need to appropriately prescribe and deprescribe. More
This issue brief recommends training health professionals to reduce medication overload, by incorporating information on geriatric care and deprescribing training into professional schools and continuing education. More
To eliminate medication overload, we should implement “prescription checkups,” medication reviews that give patients and clinicians opportunities to deprescribe (discontinue medications or reduce doses) appropriately. This issue brief provides detail on the policy, research, and technological changes needed to successfully implement prescription checkups. More
This issue brief provides recommendations for how to raise awareness among patients, clinicians, and the general public about the potential harms of multiple medication use. More
Every year, Americans spend something like $35 billion on vitamins, minerals, botanicals and various other substances that are touted as health-giving but mostly do nothing at all. Nothing at all! More
Have you had a prescription checkup lately? If you are a senior or if you take two or more medicines, a review of the medicines you take should be a standard part of your care. As your health changes, for better and for worse, the medicines you need to stay healthy will change too. More
Almost one in four cancers detected in men were overdiagnosed in 2012, according to our new research, published today in the Medical Journal of Australia. More
Are the drugs helping to fuel the opioid crisis? More
A global effort to assess the scope of overuse and underuse and expose these twin failings at the center of health strategies everywhere. More
According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, seven in 10 Americans say they would prefer to die at home. And that's the direction the health care system is moving, too, hoping to avoid unnecessary and expensive treatment at the end of life. More
A new study finds that even the "best" hospitals in the nation commonly offer unnecessary cardiovascular screening tests to wealthy patients. More
Pediatric professional groups have known for years that certain tests and procedures are unnecessary and potentially harmful. Yet one in ten children receive low-value care, according to a recent study. More
The Boston Globe highlights the problem of medication overload and provides a sneak peek of the upcoming Lown action plan. More
That idea that today we’d be basking in the fruits of ultra-personalized medicine was put forth by scientists who were promoting the Human Genome Project — a massive, publicly-funded international research effort. More
The Food and Drug Administration has gotten faster at approving new prescription drugs over the past four decades, but the evidence it relies on in making those decisions is getting weaker, according to new research... More
Researchers at Google Health teamed up with academic medical centers in the United States and Britain to train an AI system using tens of thousands of mammograms. More
As AI becomes more popular in health care, clinicians and patients should take the opportunity to learn about how the potential risks of these products. More
Millions of Americans are receiving medical treatments, tests, and procedures that are either wasteful or ineffective every single year. These services, dubbed as “low-value health care,” are defined as services for which the potential for harm outweighs the potential for benefit, and they have critical consequences for patients and the health system at large, as they are estimated to cost $300 billion nationally each year. More