The Health Care Blog

To Change Health Care, Change Diabetes.

By DANA HAZA As we work to change health care in America, we must recognize the need to dramatically change diabetes. Twenty-four million Americans have diabetes at a cost to our nation of an estimated $218 billion for diabetes and...
September 29, 2009 in Chronic conditions, prevention, Quality | Permalink | Comments (9)

Commentology

Reader Murry Ferris writes in: I am a 65 year old retired ad exec and also an insulin-dependent diabetic. I have other medical complications, but taking care of the diabetes is the big one. Every day I test my blood...
August 6, 2009 in Chronic conditions, Commentology, Costs | Permalink | Comments (3)

The Case for Home Health Care

By Dr. George Taler While Congress is debating health reform and struggling to accomplish the apparently competing goals of reducing costs while improving quality, I am part of a program that does both. As co-director of the Washington Hospital Center’s...
July 25, 2009 in Chronic conditions, Congress, Costs, Home Health Care, Long Term Care, Medicare, Physicians, primary care, Reform | Permalink | Comments (8)

McAllen: A Tale of Three Counties

By DANIEL GILDEN Introduction The challenge of constraining costs while maintaining or enhancing the quality of medical care is vividly brought to life by Atul Gawande in his recent widely-read New Yorker essay. The anecdotal evidence presented in the article...
June 25, 2009 in Chronic conditions, Dartmouth Atlas, Medicare, Medicine, Policy, Policy/Politics, prevention | Permalink | Comments (55)

Thomas Kuhn, Health Care Reform and Vascular Disease

By WILLIAM BESTERMANN The puzzle of improving care and reducing costs in American medicine and in vascular conditions (that is, diseases associated with blood vessel metabolism) in particular - these are responsible for 60 percent of all cost - has...
May 24, 2009 in Chronic conditions, evidenced-based medicine, Medicine, Obesity, Policy, primary care, Quality, Science | Permalink | Comments (8)

Op-Ed: Health care reform is within reach

By GARY APPLEBAUM In recent weeks, President Obama has gotten flack for insisting that, despite the nation's urgent economic problems, "health care reform cannot wait." On this point, though, he's absolutely right. But that doesn't mean we need more government...
April 26, 2009 in Chronic conditions | Permalink | Comments (19)