The Health Care Blog

Embracing palliative care as mainstream medicine

By Bob Wachter I’m on clinical service now and my patients are dying left and right. And I’ve never been prouder of my own care, and that delivered by my colleagues and hospital. When I was in training, a patient’s...

Engage With Grace

By Alexandra Drane & The Engage with Grace Team We make choices throughout our lives -- where we want to live, what types of activities will fill our days, with whom we spend our time. These choices are often a...

A "blog rally" to improve the end-of-life journey

By Sarah Arnquist At least 40 health bloggers plan to post a notice about Engage With Grace: The One Slide Project this Thanksgiving weekend. The Health Care Blog thanks them for their support. Matthew and Alexandra Drane, CEO of Eliza...

Rethinking compassion in medicine

By Michael Miller Two recent events made me think about how traditional medical care and medical education address the issue of compassion. The first was at the annual dinner for the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center when they gave out their...

Open Wide: Here comes the change you thought would never happen

By Jeff Goldsmith The morning after the election, I posted a speculative blog in Health Affairs on three possible scenarios for President-elect Obama’s implementing health reform: folding it into a bold, ambitious emergency legislative package (Complete the New Deal), carving...

Small Business Coverage: A Report from the Trenches

By Brian Klepper John Sinibaldi, a well-respected health insurance agent in St. Petersburg, Fla., has become prominent in Florida's broker community because he counsels and services a large book of small business clients and studiously tracks the macro trends that...

Health care costs are crippling small businesses

By John Sinibaldi I've got news for the folks doing the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans' survey: Smaller businesses, especially those defined as true small businesses with two to 50 full-time employees, are strapped beyond belief when it comes...

Up in smoke

By Sarah Arnquist Taxing cigarettes is the single-most effective way to lower smoking rates, particularly among youth. And if we could lower smoking rates, we'd save hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars each year. Good Magazine demonstrates...

Running a hospital: The demands for robotic surgery

By Paul Levy Many months ago, I wrote about the da Vinci Robot Surgical System and expressed doubts about whether there was evidence to support the clinical efficacy of this equipment, as opposed to the marketing efficacy of the company...

Fostering an adult conversation about health reform

By Robert Laszewski Zeke Emanuel and Shannon Brownlee have an op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Post that should be required reading for anyone interested in health care reform. The title is, “5 Myths About Our Ailing Health Care System.” They suggest...

Hospitals hit by economic downturn

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn Forty percent of American hospitals have seen drops in inpatient admissions, according to the American Hospital Association. In the AHA's survey, Report on the Economic Crisis: Initial Impact on Hospitals, it's clear that hospitals are already experiencing...

Electronic health records provide the foundation for clinical excellence

By Scott Shreeve I have mentioned this many times but it bears repeating with three recent news articles - the electronic health record itself is not a game changer but it is a powerful information gathering tool. However, by gathering...

America's CEOs set priorities for Obama Administration

By Brian Klepper This past Monday and Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal convened an extraordinary conference of about 100 CEOs to develop and recommend issue priorities for the new Administration. (See the participant list here.) This meeting brought together the...

Consumer-Generated Clinical Trials? Research Minus Science = Gossip

By Val Jones MD My readers know how passionate I am about protecting the public from misleading health information. I have witnessed first-hand many well-meaning attempts to “empower consumers” with Web 2.0 tools. Unfortunately, they were designed without a clear...

Fighting Alzheimer's one ribbon at a time

By THCB Staff Caring.com and the Alzheimer’s Association have teamed up to spread awareness about the disease through an online Purple Ribbon campaign. The official campaign ended earlier this year with 1,000 blogs and websites displaying the purple ribbon, but...

Could a larger investment in primary care cure the health care system?

By Deron Schriver I'm going to go out on a big ol' limb here by saying that 90 percent of our health care problems could be solved by rebuilding and refocusing our primary care delivery system. It's the issue most...

A Great American Smokeout, but where's the coverage to help people quit?

By Mitchell Katz Today is the Great American Smokeout, and while San Franciscans are doing their part to help people battle nicotine addiction, I became aware recently that not all the health insurance plans for our county workers in San...

This isn't the early 1990s

By Sarah Arnquist Several stories in today's papers make it clear that the atmosphere for health reform today truly is different than when the Clinton Administration took over in the 1990s. Here's the bullet points in support of that thesis:...

More on Health 2.0 & Ix Synergies

By Josh Seidman Our IxAction Alliance focused our monthly IxInsights Webinar this week on the synergies between Health 2.0 and information therapy (Ix). This marks the first of a series of activities for the IxCenter on the H20-Ix intersection as...

Why the markets are in a panic over Obama

By Donald E. Johnson The stock market has plunged since late September when it became pretty clear that President-elect Barack Obama would become our next president in January. Why? Uncertainty. While the mounting financial crisis certainly has had a major...

Daschle Tapped for HHS Secretary

By Brian Klepper The Caucus, the New York Times Political Blog, reports that senior Obama aides have said that Mr. Obama offered the nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services to Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the former Democratic...

Big pharma has big problems

By David Williams Big pharma has big problems. The root cause is a lack of research and development productivity, which means a dearth of new products to make up for looming patent expirations. Something near half of big pharma’s revenues...

An Open letter to Congresstional Budget Office: Keep it straight

By Robert Laszewski I guess this is an open letter to CBO Director Peter Orszag and his colleagues at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). I have great respect for the CBO and that has been the case under different majorities--Democratic...

Two Mea Culpas

By Brian Klepper Here's an attempt to recover from two mistakes yesterday. My post on our dismal prospects for real health care reform prompted a couple readers - thanks to Hal Andrews and Fred Goldstein - to take me to...

The Changes We Need

By Brian Klepper These are, as the Chinese curse reputedly called them, interesting times. If the burst of new Democratic health care reform proposals is any indication, a fresh breeze of the Obama campaign's "Yes We Can" optimism is blowing...

Moody's predicts winners & losers in Obama health reform

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn Moody's, the credit rating agency, offers their post-election impressions in their special comment, "U.S. Healthcare Industry: Credit Implications of the U.S. Election." Barack Obama's campaign roughed out principles for health reform across three issue areas: Access and...

Are Hospitalists Recession Proof?

By BOB WACHTER Hospitals aren’t the first businesses hurt when the economy sours, but they get hurt nonetheless, as an article in last week’s NY Times points out. But hospitalists have never lived through a massive downturn. What happens to...

Baucus' proposal proves no consensus on key reform issues

By Bob Laszewski Max Baucus will be a key player in the health care debate the next two years. As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee he has jurisdiction on many of the key issues including Medicare and provider payment...

“Spread the Wealth” Controversy Hits Doctors

By Maggie Mahar & Niko Karvounis By now you know that Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) has offered a “Call to Arms” for health care reform by way of a 98-page policy document. There is much to think about in Baucus’...

Battling MRSA with transparency

By Sarah Arnquist Two weeks ago, I made an emergency trip home to Minnesota because my grandmother fell ill. She went to the emergency room on a Sunday night, complaining of fatigue and shortness of breath. The emergency physician diagnosed...

Medical informatics needs a rock star

By Neil Versel Medical informatics needs a rock star. Not a David Brailer-esque figure who could excite people in the technology sphere, but perhaps a Don Berwick type who can reach every level and constituency of health care, and even...

The Mormon Church has forfeited its right to not pay taxes

By Matthew Holt I don't often use THCB for direct political protests. I don't care what the obscure cult known as The Church of Jesus and the Latter Day Saints does in the privacy of its own congregation, even though...

Transparency Works!!! (And better than you can imagine)

By PAUL LEVY I just saw clear evidence of the importance of transparency with regard to the reporting of important adverse events and medical errors. Bear with me through the details, but I will not keep you in suspense regarding...

A patient's perspective: Do doctors read?

By Christine Gray After monitoring e-patients.net and The Health Care Blog, I have to ask: Do doctors read? And if so, what? I know four things from my own experience (and watching "Grey’s Anatomy”). First, physicians are busy often exhausted...

Telehealth right here right now

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn A very smart doctor told me, "there's been a realization that the exam room is wherever the patient is." That simple, elegant and insightful remark was offered by Dr. Jay Sanders, one of the godfathers of telehealth....

Happenings in HIT

By Sarah Arnquist Cleveland Clinic launched its pilot partnership with Microsoft HealthVault to provide personal health records for 150,000 patients. CMS selected four companies to pilot its personal health record program: Google, HealthTrio, NoMoreClipboard, and Passport MD. Beginning in January,...

Winners & Losers in HIT

By John Halamka I was recently asked to predict IT Winners and Losers in 2009. Rather than name individual companies, I'd like to highlight categories. Winners 1. Electronic Health Record vendors, especially web-based applications - The Obama administration has promised...

Shreeve brothers named winners of Linux Freedom Award

By Scott Shreeve I am deeply honored and profoundly grateful to be recognized, along with my brother Steve Shreeve, as the 2008 winner of the Linux Medical News Freedom Award. While this is a niche award in a niche space,...

Health Wonk Review Is Up!

Check it out over at Colorado Health Insurance Insider. Thanks to Louise for compiling!

Maxing out on health reform

By Sarah Arnquist Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus' unveiling of a health reform proposal yesterday fed speculation about the possibility of Democrats tackling health reform from the get-go of the new Administration. The Montana Democrat's proposal is detailed in...

Baucus to unveil reform proposal with individual mandate

By Sarah Arnquist The Wall Street Journal reports that the Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont) will unveil today his plan to overhaul the U.S. health care system. Laura Meckler, of The Journal, reports the plan is very similar...

Will Democrats muck up any chance for health reform?

<a href="http://www.buzzdash.com/index.php?page=buzzbite&BB_id=130601">Will Democrats muck up health reform by infighting and power plays?</a> | <a href="http://www.buzzdash.com">BuzzDash polls</a>

Will layoffs take us closer to single-payer?

By David E. Williams Only a few months ago, Goldman Sachs was touted as an incredible bastion of strength in the face of the credit crunch. Sure some other institutions might have been suffering, but Goldman was savvy enough to...

Getting value from medical devices

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn The buyers of medical devices aren't very good shoppers. They lack the kind of information about technologies that would help them make value-based purchasing decisions, according to James Robinson in the most recent issue of Health Affairs....

Health 2.0's impact on the digital divide

By Gilles Frydman For too many years, I've witnessed the same thing. First, it was in the ACOR system. Then it occurred in many conferences about eHealth, e-Patients, and now Health 2.0 and the Connected Health symposium at Harvard Medical...

CAP's Blueprint for reform

By Joshua Seidman The Center for American Progress (CAP) released a new “Blueprint for Reform” that focuses on how to fix the delivery system. This well-constructed document and provocative forum was spearheaded by CAP CEO John Podesta (former Clinton White...

Hypermimesis and Healthcare 2.0 - Guidelines for Building Contagiously Healthy Social Networks

By Jim Walker “Contagious” is an interesting word, especially when used outside the world of health care, carrying both positive and negative connotations, such as, “her laughter was contagious” or “a financial contagion has hit the markets.” Of course, within...

MD Rating Sites: Current State of the Space and Future Prospects

By Ruth Given Ruth Given has spent the last few months doing an exhaustive study of the physician ratings business. Ruth is an independent health economist and consultant who has in the past worked for Kaiser, the California Medical Association...

Proposal for a THCB Healthcare Reform Effort

By Deron Schriver THCB regular reader Deron Schriver wants THCB readers to suggest plans to reform the health care system. Here's his appeal: I enjoy many of the discussions on THCB. Intelligent people from all vantage points of the health...

Huckabee on health & more around the Web

By Sarah Arnquist Trudy Lieberman at the CJR : Campaign Desk calls Mike Huckabee's views on health care "a fresh addition to the national health care discussion." Huckabee talked about the origins of health and the need to focus on...