health department

On Health Care Renewal we have frequently written about individual and institutional conflicts of interest.  The landmark but often ignored 2009 report by the Institute of Medicine on Conflicts of Interest in Medical Education, Research and Practice defined institutional conflicts of interest as arising when an institution's own financial interests or those of its senior officials pose risks of

Introduction - What Has Gone Wrong with the Leadership of Health Care Organizations A major focus of Health Care Renewal has been problems in leadership and governance of health care organizations, which we believe became major causes of health care dysfunction.  For example, we have discussed how leadership is often ill-informed.  More and more people leading non-profit, for-profit and

Many big health care organizations, including for-profit corporations, have high-minded mission statements, and proclaim their social responsibility.  Unfortunately, we have shown that many leaders of such organizations seem indifferent to these seemingly exemplary goals, and even exhibit mission-hostile management. A recent example involving CVS Health provided an unprecedented example of

Impunity: an Introduction We believe that unaccountable leadership is a major cause of health care dysfunction.  Impunity is an extreme form of unaccountable leadership. We have noted that despite numerous legal settlements made by health care organizations of alllegations like fraud, bribery, and kickbacks, almost never do top leaders who presided over these actions face any negative

Amidst the news deluge, a story that stood out in the last few days was that of the strange relationships between a consulting firm set up by President Donald Trump's former lawyer and Trump Organization counsel Michael Cohen, and several large corporations.  As reported on May 8, 2018 by the New York Times, the focus was on the payments made to the firm, Essential Consultants LLC, by a financial

"Don't worry, things could be worse.  And sure enough, things got worse." Disinformation in Medicine and Health Care 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

For a long time we have argued that health care corruption is a major cause of health care dysfunction.  We have documented numerous cases in which health care professionals were exposed to or involved in actions, including fraud, bribery (also known as kickbacks), and other corrupt or criminal practices, to which they likely had moral objections.  We have also noted that in such situations,

Last week, we discussed what appeared to be the most egregious case of the health care revolving door seen so far.  A health care corporate lobbyist without any direct medical, health care, public health or biomedical science experience was named Acting US Secretary of Health and Human Services after being confirmed as Deputy Secretary. Former Top Executive of Pharmaceutical Company Eli Lilly

The new US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb is promoting making the agency's mechanisms to approve new drugs more lenient, according to the Cardiobrief blog.  Blogger Larry Husten wrote: Gottlieb’s entire career has centered on loosening regulatory restrictions to enable industry to thrive. At the core of his philosophy is the view that with fewer restrictions

A common justification for a market fundamentalist approach to health care is the promise of innovation.  Providing market-based incentives will inspire generations of entrepreneurs who will bring out new and wondrous health care products and services, or so the story goes.  So we are now daily bombarded with media coverage of the latest innovations by such entrepreneurs.  But after the initial

We have long contended that a major reason for health care dysfunction is perverse incentives, including those that allow top health care leaders to become rich by putting money ahead of patient care.  We have presented case after case supporting this point, most recently including a collection of generously compensated top executives of non-profit hospital systems whose pay seemed

Normally, the sorts of people who are responsible for health policy for the US government are not the most flamboyant in the world.  Government advisers and officials show up on the Health Care Renewal,  an equal-opportunity offender, usually because of conflicts of interest issues, particularly the revolving door.  But left unsaid is that even those we criticize are usually well-informed,