Action for Better Healthcare
In the past few years, we’ve seen a shift in the healthcare industry toward transparency.
Patients seem to want more transparency and full disclosure on physicians' potential conflicts of interest, with 78 percent of survey respondents believing that gifts received by doctors from the pharmaceutical industry are likely to influence prescriptions.
There have been myriad articles of late on the costs of healthcare and reform, yet fewer address the costs of quality. In this guest post, Dr. Seymour Handler, pathologist, provides his insight on cost inflation, “the most important problem facing healthcare in the United States.”
In this video, retired hospital CEO Kester Freeman speaks to the urgency of healthcare reform and the need for a rational reimbursement system for providers.
In this video by Action for Better Healthcare, Don Ammon, retired president and CEO of Adventist Health, discusses the importance of adjusting incentives for primary care physicians as a key part of healthcare reform.
We sat down with Dr. Atul Gawande, a staff member of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and the New Yorker magazine. His recent article, “The Cost Conundrum,” points to McAllen, Texas, a town with the lowest household income in the country, yet with some of the highest healthcare costs
The number of hospitals, medical schools and associations requiring physicians and researchers to disclose potential conflicts of interest with medical device and pharmaceutical companies increases daily.
A recent article in the Chicago Tribune highlights Mexico as another popular destination for medical tourism (traveling abroad for medical care). While not exactly a new phenomenon, it is a rapidly growing industry, currently estimated at $60 billion by one estimate.
In a recent interview, Alan Channing, president and CEO of Sinai Health Systems in Chicago, discussed the challenges that his 'have not' health system faces on a daily basis.
Obviously, healthcare information technology has a front-and-center role in the new Obama administration. The outcome of what’s to come has yet to be seen, of course, and as opinions vary widely, the actions that follow in the immediate future will have great ramifications to every aspect of the healthcare industry.