I know I’m late on both of these, as both were published a week ago. Late or not, I like to catch up so that I can archive good stuff on my site. An analysis by the Nordic Cochrane Center in Copenhagen led to this conclusion: “General health checks did not reduce morbidity or mortality, [...]
The PBS NewsHour reports on the most recent report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on global health care spending. Snapshots: NewsHour: The U.S. system is known for over-testing and over-treating, everything from CT scans and MRIs, knee replacements to coronary bypasses. How severe is the over-testing and why is it occurring? [...]
A new article in Consumer Reports begins: If gas stations worked like health care, you wouldn’t find out until the pump switched off whether you paid $3 or $30 a gallon. If clothes shopping worked like health care, you might pay $80 for a pair of jeans at your local boutique and $400 for the [...]
Here are some links to some things I’ve meant to write about this week. They caught my eye and I thought readers of this blog might find them interesting. For The Washington Post, Sarah Kliff writes about something that “could revolutionize health care…a health policy wonk’s dream.” She explains: “a new nonprofit called the Health [...]
Aaron Carroll, blogging on The Incidental Economist was “all riled up to get angry” over a Health Affairs paper that suggested “that the higher-cost US system of cancer care delivery may be worth it.” He wrote: So much wrong here. First of all, it uses the old “survival rate”/”mortality rate” swap that I’ve discussed here and [...]
Julie Appleby of Kaiser Health News reports, “Employers Tie Financial Rewards, Penalties To Health Tests, Lifestyle Choices.” Excerpt: Gone are the days of just signing up for health insurance and hoping you don’t have to use it. Now, more employees are being asked to roll up their sleeves for medical tests — and to exercise, [...]
Some of the Groupon, Living Social, Daily Deal offerings are getting a little crazy. Here’s one I got today. The ad copy is astounding: Been dealing with a minor ache or pain? Get it checked out today! Once in a while, you may experience an enlightening moment in your life. This experience may change the [...]
Journalist Laura Newman, on her Patient POV blog, posts, “MR Imaging, Electronic Test Ordering Creates Waste.” She writes: Waste is what you get with rampant, uncritical use of MRI and health information technology, according to two papers out this week. The authors of a companion editorial to one of the papers even go so far [...]
The National Journal reports on a new analysis from the International Federation of Health Plans (pdf file). Excerpts: The group’s survey of expenses for medical procedures, tests, scans and treatments in nine countries shows that Americans pay more for physician time, for scans, surgery and drugs than people in Spain, France, Germany, Argentina, Chile, Canada, [...]
The following is an unsolicited guest post submitted by Donald W. Light, University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey, and Rebecca Warburton, University of Victoria, Canada. It is followed by some comments in response from Matthew Herper, the writer of the Forbes article in question. We are pleased to provide this forum for this [...]
Better than a competing piece by Reuters but still a little short on some details about this asthma drug study.
An adequate summary of this asthma drug trial’s design doesn’t make up for the overly optimistic tone about the drug’s future. A New York Times story was better.
This story focuses on a family that may have a rare genetic mutation that increases their risk of heart disease. Unfortunately, the “rare” part wasn’t mentioned until 1,600 words into this 2,100 word story.
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