policy issues
policy issues, reforming hc
“That means there is hope” – Atul Gawande at #CISummit
Edits made in the discussion at bottom, 1/27. Quick post from the media table at today’s Medicare Innovation Summit: Deservedly famed surgeon & author Atul Gawande just put together a bunch of thoughts into a potent summary. Paraphrasing from memory: There is a bell curve for quality – a wide gap between the best care [...]
Read Moregeneral, hc's problem list, medical records, policy issues, reforming hc, understanding statistics
Fred Trotter: Data, damn data, and statistics
Why does this blog use the word “damn” so often? A search produces a whopping 38 hits, such as: Fools! Damn fools! And Medical Science (Right, Santa??) Atlantic: Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science “Gimme my damn data!” The stage is being set to enable patient-driven disruptive innovation Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics: Collective Statistical [...]
Read Morefound on the net, news & gossip, policy issues
Daniel Carpenter in NY Times: Move the FDA out from under politicians
I’m no expert on the FDA but my science antennas are twitching nervously about this, so I’ll post and invite discussion. In a surprising move last week, President Obama and HHS Secretary Sebelius overrules (basically, vetoed) the FDA’s recommendation to make “Plan B” morning-after contraceptives more easily available. This was widely agreed to be purely [...]
Read Moregeneral, hc's problem list, policy issues, shared decision making
For some people, it’s still 1994
Here’s a question which inspired me today, received via email from Christie Silbajoris, director of NC Health Info: My library is rethinking its provision of services to the public. We’ve got a history of going beyond what the average academic health sciences library provides in this area but in this age of budget cuts (and [...]
Read Moreethics, policy issues
World AIDS Day
Mark Senak’s post, “World AIDS Day: The Past Cannot Be the Future,” inspired me to write an epic comment about different perspectives on illness and care delivery, so I adapted and expanded it to share here: I recently read Susan Sontag‘s two essays, “Illness as Metaphor” (about TB & cancer, published in 1977) and “AIDS [...]
Read Moremedical records, policy issues, pt/doc co-care, reforming hc, shared decision making, Why PM
Alert: Lawrence Weed, father of the Problem Oriented Medical Record, looks ahead
The excellent ICMCC daily newsletter just alerted me to this item from Permanente Journal: Interview with Lawrence Weed, MD – The Father of the Problem-Oriented Medical Record Looks Ahead. I hope to absorb it in the next day or two, and I invite people who know this history to do the same. It’s deep, and it’s connected [...]
Read Moremedical records, policy issues, reforming hc
Society for Participatory Medicine Files Comments in Support of Proposed CLIA and HIPAA Regs Making Lab Results Available to Patients
As you may recall, in September the federales issued proposed regulations that would make all lab results subject to the basic rule that all patient records should be provided to the patient upon request. See the post on e-patients.net explaining the proposed rule on access to lab results and its background. Following discussion in the comments to the blog [...]
Read Moremedical records, policy issues, Why PM
A glimpse of OpenNotes findings: “Patients are overwhelmingly interested”
“Patients are overwhelmingly interested in gaining rapid access to their notes … doctors have not experienced significant disruptions to their work.” Hear hear! That’s from a new commentary published Monday in Modern Healthcare about the OpenNotes project, in which patients have full access to their doctor’s visit notes. We’ve written about it numerous times, dating back to our [...]
Read Morepolicy issues, positive patterns, research issues, shared decision making
Agency seeks *patients*(!) for Patient Centered Outcomes project. Too few are stepping up! (You??)
Corrections 8:45 pm ET Monday 10/24: This post’s title originally said HHS was seeking patients. Actually it’s PCORI, a new non-government agency, as described below. Both affect the future of healthcare, but PCORI isn’t part of HHS. The title also said “None are stepping up,” which disrespected those who had. “Too few” is better. As [...]
Read Morepolicy issues, reforming hc
Federales finalize Accountable Care Organization regs, define “patient engagement” and “patient-centeredness”
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka the health reform law) added “patient engagement” and “patient-centeredness” to the United States Code’s lexicon. Yesterday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized the official definition of these terms for purposes of Accountable Care Organizations that may seek to participate in the Medicare Shared Savings Program. [...]
Read More


