A paper published in the Journal for Healthcare Quality examined the content of information on 400 randomly selected U.S. hospital websites about robotic surgery. Results: “Forty-one percent of hospital websites described robotic surgery. Among these, 37% percent presented robotic surgery on their homepage, 73% used manufacturer-provided stock images or text, and 33% linked to a [...]
“Adoption of robotic technology fueled rapid growth in the use of prostatectomy at a time when the incidence of prostate cancer decreased, investigators reported (at an American Urological Association conference in Washington, DC, according to MedPageToday . They quoted Hugh J. Lavery, MD, of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York: “The cancer outcomes and [...]
See the latest in ProPublica’s “Dollars for Doctors” series, this one headlined “Financial Ties Bind Medical Societies To Drug and Device Makers.” It begins: “From the time they arrived to the moment they laid their heads on hotel pillows, the thousands of cardiologists attending this week’s Heart Rhythm Society conference have been bombarded with pitches [...]
Larry Husten, on his Cardiobrief blog, reports: Drug-eluting stents (DESs) cost Medicare an additional $1.57 billion per year, according to a study published online in the Archives of Internal Medicine.…In an editor’s note, Rita Redberg wrote that “it is time to clearly define what the value of this extraordinary investment has been in terms of [...]
On his Cardiobrief blog, Larry Husten gives an insider’s view of the kind of promotional shenanigans some in the health care industry will use to manage news coverage of their research. You should read the whole piece, but to wet your whistle, here’s an excerpt: “Listening to a PR pitch- err, “pre-briefing”- shouldn’t be a [...]
Maggie Mahar’s Health Beat blog tipped me off about a Bloomberg opinion piece by an Oregon urologist that begins by stating: “The decision to opt for medical care that relies on the most costly technology is often based on blind faith that newer, elaborate and expensive must be better.” Later, he focuses specifically on robotic [...]
Anthony J. Montagnolo, executive vice president and chief operating officer at ECRI Institute, writes in Trustee magazine, “A Question of Value: Proton therapy’s benefits have a big price tag. Is it right for your hospital?“ Although this is an article and a publication targeted at directors of hospitals and health care systems, what it says [...]
A paper in the journal Medical Care concludes that hospitals that acquire surgical robots do more radical prostatectomies as a result – an average of 29 more per year – while those without robots actually did fewer radical prostatectomies. Their conclusion: “Policy makers must recognize the intimate association between technology diffusion and procedure utilization when [...]
While watching the network TV news last evening, I was jolted by a TV commercial for an artificial hip joint. The ad featured animation of very active people with very young-looking body forms – muscular young shapes playing soccer, skiing, running, cliff climbing, even surfing. Not the demographic we usually associate with hip joint surgery. [...]
If my Google search can be trusted at this moment, very few mainstream news organizations have reported on new robotic prostate surgery data presented at a cancer meeting in Florida this week. MedPageToday had the best story I’ve seen, “Long Learning Curve for Robotic Prostate Removal.” Excerpts: “Three experienced surgeons needed more than 1,600 cases [...]
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.
While this story adequately addressed 7 of our 10 criteria, the 3 on which it missed were significant omissions, yet could have been easily addressed.
Solid medical conference reporting, with many expert interviews and good context provided. Goes far beyond the conference presentation itself.
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