Researchers from Harvard and the University of Illinois at Chicago have published “Principles of Conservative Prescribing” in the Archives of Internal Medicine. They write: The concept sums up lessons from past experience as well as from recent studies demonstrating that medications are commonly used inappropriately, overused, and associated with significant harm–suggesting the need to more [...]
On the NPR Shots blog, Scott Hensley writes, “Quality Prescription For Primary Care Doctors: Do Less,” about an article in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Excerpt: “A group of docs who want to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of primary care tinkered with some Top 5 lists for of dos and don’ts for pediatricians, family [...]
The April edition of Health Affairs is a theme issue, “Still Crossing the Quality Chasm.” It includes an article, “Informing and Involving Patients To Improve The Quality of Medical Decisions.” (subscription required for full text access) The authors conclude: “We argue that among the most important reforms needed to improve medical care are those that [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
I was very sad and quite angry after watching a powerful video this weekend, “The Faces of Medical Error… From Tears to Transparency.” It was the story of Michael Skolnik. His mother, Patty, gave me the video when I met her recently. The story is that Michael had what may have been unnecessary brain surgery [...]
This is a Monday catchup effort – catching up on two big journalism projects that are worthy of more attention. Dallas Morning News deputy managing editor explains on the Nieman Watchdog site that the paper’s “First, Do No Harm” project published 15 times over 9 months on two local sacred cows. She writes: “Every place [...]
And for doing so in the heart of Medtronic country, as the Strib reminds readers: The state is home to Medtronic Inc., the world’s largest maker of devices used in spine surgery, as well as Abbott Northwestern Hospital, which performs more spine fusion surgeries on Medicare patients than any other hospital in the country, according [...]
Ratings by individual health plans or by HealthGrades or by RateMDs.com or by Angie’s List? (That’s where I just found a roofing contractor!) Michelle Andrews reflects on the dilemma consumers face in choosing a doctor and in trying to make sense of physician ratings. She wrote on the Kaiser Health News site. And on the [...]
Medical errors, safety and quality issues are highlighted in several new health journalism efforts. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a “Who Protects the Patients?” series underway. The latest story profiles a teenager who died after being suffocated at a hospital that had been warned that its restraint policies weren’t safe. A sidebar to the latest [...]
It’s difficult to do an overview of melanoma drug research in a relatively brief story. But this story did a solid job.
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.
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