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Showing posts from March, 2017

An eloquently expressed lesson from Nanaimo (Canada) on electronic medical records failure

Unfortunately, this eloquent piece on EHR failure expresses precisely the major problems with this experimental technology that generic medical managers and other medical bureaucrats are unwilling to hear, and/or unable to fully comprehend. At my May 31, 2016 post "HIT Mayhem, Canadian Style: Nanaimo (Vancouver Island) doctors say electronic health record system unsafe, should be shut down,

Who Benefits? - From the Mayo Clinic Explicitly Putting Commercially Insured Patients Ahead of Some Government Insured Patients?

Amidst all the chaotic noise emanating from Washington, DC, little snippets of news keep slipping out reminding us that the US health care system remains monumentally dysfunctional, and that the dysfunction serves the interests of the system's insiders. Putting Commercially Insured Patients First On March 15, 2017, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune first reported that the CEO of the august Mayo

A Beach Too Far - Ill-Informed, Conflicted Members of the "Beachhead Team" for the Department of Health and Human Services

ProPublica recently published an article describing the so-called "beachhead teams" sent by the Trump administration to various US federal departments and agencies.  The article stated While President Trump has not moved to fill many jobs that require Senate confirmation, he has quietly installed hundreds of officials to serve as his eyes and ears at every major federal agency, from the

Whose Costs? Who Benefits? - A Close Reading of a Hospital System CEO's Prescription for Controlling Health Care Costs

The attempt to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act has suddenly made health care dysfunction a hot topic in the US.   For example, today, in my local paper, the Providence Journal, Dr Timothy J Bainbeau, the CEO of the Lifespan Health System,  the biggest regional health system weighed in on the problem of high and increasing health care costs.  A close reading of his commentary

Experts, anger, and the madness of crowds

We find ourselves in a most peculiar historical moment. Among other things--many other things--problems of health care policy, research, and clinical practice more and more resemble those of society at large. There's a general sense everywhere that, whatever the outfit, the Wrong Guy is in charge of it. Then like a snake eating its tail, we argue endlessly about the details. It's enough to give

Patient or Corporate Advocacy Organizations? - New Studies Shed Some Light

Introduction On Health Care Renewal we frequently discuss how people and institutions entrusted to promote patients' and the public's health instead promote commercial interests.  For example, health care corporations, particularly drug/ biotechnology/ device companies may enlist key opinion leaders (KOLs).  These are nominally learned academics and distinguished professionals, but who have