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Showing posts from August, 2017

Information technology-naive defense lawyers vs. "strident critic of electronic health records"

A tale from the trenches. In recent years, as a result of the 2010 IT-related injury and 2011 death of my mother, I have engaged myself as an independent EHR forensic expert regarding evidentiary and patient harm issues in medical malpractice litigation.  Interestingly and disappointingly, I still often find that hospital attitudes towards health IT safety and information transparency have

Who Guards the Guardians? - From DeVry at a Time of Alleged Fraud to Anti-Fraud Enforcement for the Department of Education

There seems to be another fox ready to guard the already flustered educational, including medical educational hen house. Dr Julian Schmoke to Lead Student Aid Enforcement Unit According to Politico on August 30, 2017, the new head of enforcement for the Department of Education will be one Dr Julian Schmoke Jr, The Trump administration has tapped a former for-profit college official to lead

A Stealth Marketer Goes Through the Revolving Door to ... the President's Council of Economic Advisors?!

Stealthy, deceptive systematic marketing, lobbying, and policy advocacy campaigns on behalf of big health care organizations, often pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies, have long been a subject of Health Care Renewal.  A relatively recently revealed example was the stealth marketing campaign used by GlaxoSmithKline to sell its antidepressant Paxil.  This campaign included

Health Care Non-Profit Organizations Ignored Conflicts of Interest or Potential Corruption Generated by Mar a Lago Fundraisers, But Drew the Line at Supporting Nazi Sympathizers

Leaders of big health care organizations have long made excuses for rampant conflicts of interest in health care.  Usually, their rationales included something about the need to collaborate with industry to spark innovation.  However, some leaders may have been directly benefiting from such conflicts (e.g., academic leaders on the payrolls of drug, device and biotechnology firms, even on the

Can We Challenge Health Care Corruption Under Morally Failed Government Leadership?

Introduction: Health Care Corruption An important theme of Health Care Renewal has been health care corruption as a cause of health care dysfunction. Transparency International (TI) defines corruption as Abuse of entrusted power for private gain In 2006, TI published a report on health care corruption, which asserted that corruption is widespread throughout the world, serious, and causes