Helping Patients Take Their Medication: Lessons from Helping Patients Quit Smoking
[This article first appeared in the Journal of Patient Compliance, the only peer-reviewed journal devoted to patient adherence.] Smokers are not patients — or, at least, that’s the view that most people have of smokers. Like most “self-inflicted” health risks, like drinking too much alcohol and sharing needles, the stigma attached to smoking and smokers … Read more
Monitoring Technology for PCA Pumps Can Prevent Adverse Events with Patient-Controlled Analgesia (PCA): So Why Are Hospitals Not Using It?
This article has also been published in SurgiStrategies, which can be read here.) According to its newly-updated, “How-to Guide: Prevent Harm from High-Alert Medication”, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) looked at high-alert medications, which are “more likely than other medications to be associated with harm”. One of the areas that the IHI singles out is narcotics. The … Read more
What’s Driving the Costs of Malpractice Claims?
What are the costs of the malpractice claims? According to the study published in Health Affairs, “National Costs of the Medical Liability System”, concluded that the costs are $55.6 billion a year, which is 2.4% of annual healthcare spending. This $55.6 billion is divided as follows: $45.6 billion in defensive medicine costs $5.7 billion in … Read more
Improving Patient Safety in Hospitals: Can Hospitals Afford to Give Away Money? So Why Do Preventable Adverse Events Still Occur in Hospitals?
This is the question that I posed to lawyers, insurers, and healthcare professionals attending a major healthcare conference, the Crittenden Medical Conference. According to the Institute of Medicine, each preventable adverse event costs about $8,750 — and this excludes potential litigation costs. Can hospitals afford to give away money? So, why do preventable adverse events still occur … Read more
What Does Our Healthcare System Look Like?: Decoding Your Medical Bills
Some creative designers would like your opinion on how they see healthcare: To see a full copy of their graphic, please click here.
Do Hospitals Care About Improving Patient Outcomes?: Hospital Report Cards Fall Flat at Improving Patient Outcomes
In a recent study published in Health Affairs, researchers wanted to know whether Medicare’s public reporting initiative, Hospital Compare, which began reporting measures of hospital quality for almost all US acute care hospitals in 2005, had an impact on patient mortality. They concluded: Medicare’s public reporting initiative for hospitals has had a minimal impact on … Read more
When Doctors’ Orders Are Not Followed: Are Co-Pay Cards Kick-Backs or Just Good Marketing?
Co-pay cards provide patients a discount off all or part of the co-pay that they would otherwise have to pay. Saving money — it sounds like a good idea for patients, right? Community Catalyst, an “organization working to build the consumer and community leadership that is required to transform the American health system”, disagrees. Community … Read more
Who should set medical standards — doctors or lawyers?
In this article I wrote with lawyer Peter A. Corsale (Gallop, Johnson & Neuman, L.C.), we ask the question, “Who should set medical standards — doctors or lawyers?” I believe that medical standards should be set by doctors. After all, medicine is what doctors are trained to do. As Peter and I argue, the alternative … Read more
Compliance with FDA Requirements: What Are Executives Thinking or Not Thinking??
Recently, Novartis took a “$120m charge to improve a US manufacturing plant and recall drugs after the FDA sent it a 483”. For those uninitiated in FDA-speak, form 483 is used by the FDA to document and communicate concerns discovered during factory inspections. In this case, Novartis recalled bottles of Excedrin, Bufferin, Gas-X and NoDoz … Read more
How can pharmaceuticals get their drugs in front of doctors?
How indeed? Anytime a pharmaceutical tries to influence doctors it will get “slammed” by the media and by the public (this of course is also true for device manufacturers). Any type of “business” relationship will be frowned upon … unless it’s non-branded. In a recent study published in Health Marketing Quarterly, “Nonbranded or Branded Direct-to-Consumer Prescription … Read more
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