The Health Care Blog – Page 942 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

Above the Fold

Meet the New (Acting) Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Jan 12, 2009• 4

It didn’t make a Wall Street Journal story on changes at the Department of Health and Human Services , and a brief mention in a pharmaceutical industry blog was a bit vague , but THCB has confirmed that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality now has an acting director who will be in charge after Jan. 20: it’s Carolyn Clancy, the current full-time director.

As the Journal reported, the outgoing Bush administration has named acting heads to lead a number of HHS agencies until the Obama administration can pick permanent new leaders. As part of that process, replacements have been named for some current chiefs who clearly won’t be staying on (e.g., Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). At the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, it will be a case of a new Acting Administrator replacing an old Acting Administrator, since Kerry Weems, the Acting Administrator since September, 2007, was never given a permanent appointment subject to Senate approval.

Eric Novack has a few questions….

Jan 12, 2009• 13

By Eric Novack

1. In California, where the SEIU is attempting to forcefully merge with the United Healthcare Workers, I can’t seem to find the focus on, you know, health care. “What it does is allows them to have the strongest voice possible in Sacramento,” said Mary Kay Henry, SEIU executive vice president.

2. Should the new administration be looking at Massachusetts as model to follow for health reform, or as a model of what must, at all costs (and they are extremely high), be avoided?3. How can we reconcile the fact that on Thursday the President-elect spoke about the importance of spending more on healthcare while on Sunday explaining that he intends to recommend spending less?4. In 2005, the association health plan bill (aka small business health plan) was killed, in large part, because advocates for specific disease conditions believed that state mandates and state lobbying efforts would be hampered if more people were covered under ERISA (i.e. national mandates—which are much harder to pass)— how will the administration propose to address this issue of state mandates in sweeping health care reform? 5. If health and health care are ultimately the most personal part of our lives, is it possible that more nationalization of health care will result in a greater role of lobbying bureaucrats and elected officials to seek and obtain care?6. How much would Medicare taxes be, and Part B and D premiums be, if the system actually needed to be self supporting, and the government had to keep adequate financial reserves like private insurers?

The Year in Research according to RWJF

Jan 12, 2009

By Matthew Holt

A while back we suggested that people went to look at RWJF’s Pioneering blog to rate its posts for the year and see what they liked. Well it appears that RWJF fans like articles about obesity and Massachusetts (and not much else). It’s all in the new post 2008: The Year in Research.

Welcome To Health Wonk Review – 1/09/09

Jan 9, 2009• 14

By BRIAN KLEPPER

Well, here we are at the beginning of 2009. On TV we’ve learned that the unlimited spending and brilliant, if socially pathological, heroics of Dr. Gregory House, unfailingly saves his patients from unknowable complexity and the abyss of death.

Meanwhile, the rest of health care, aided largely by really excellent lobbying, continues to be buoyed, defying the relentlessly corrosive gravitational pull of waste, corruption, and a tanking economy.

Still, health care’s troops are beginning to feel, in Tom Lehrer’s words, like a Christian Scientist with an appendicitis. Things definitely are not going well, and this longstanding run of great good fortune could be on the downswing. Is it possible that exorbitant pricing and massive waste are NOT entitlements!

Which brings us to the far-ranging insights, jabs, diatribes, rants and enthusiasms of this edition of Health Wonk Review, which features analysis and exegesis as entertainment.

Should the FDA relax in the search for new cures?

Jan 9, 2009• 1

By Matthew Holt

Over at DiabetesMine #1 health blogger Amy Tenderich has very important post. She and several fellow travelers are appealing to the FDA to strike a balance between safety and progress in allowing new diabetes treatments.

The FDA of course has been beaten to a pulp these last few years because it’s played footsie with the drug industry and ignored several potentially damning studies, with the result that the number of drugs withdrawn from the market has been much higher than in previous years.(Vioxx, Phen-Fen, Baycol, et al).

I’ve always felt that the FDA’s role should not to be a black/white (dangerous/safe) stamp of approval, but instead it should be the honest broker of getting all the data out there. As Amy and her crew point out, some diabetics may be prepared to take a risk of higher long-term cardiac complications in return for a medium term gain from a new medication. Something similar is certainly true in terms of hormone replacement therapy.

Persistent Nondiagnosis

Jan 9, 2009• 11

By Brad Kittredge

Brad Kittredge is an MBA/MPH student at the Haas Business School at UC, Berkeley. He is working to build an online tool to assist with complex and difficult diagnoses, which, as you’ll see, he considers among the biggest problems in medical care. He blogs more about these issues at Hyoumanity.

Every day, thousands of Americans are desperately seeking answers to complex medical conditions that doctors are unable to diagnose. Consider one example: Jenny T. is a 14 year old girl with a progressively debilitating neuro-degenerative condition that has taken her from healthy and active to nearly paralyzed in less than one year. Her parents have taken her to some of the best academic medical centers in the US, including Stanford, UCSF, and the University of Pennsylvania, but doctors have been unable to diagnose her condition, leaving Jenny and her parents desperate for answers and short on options.

“The Innovator’s Prescription”: Christensen’s Book Offers Insightful Dx, Unrealistic Rx

Jan 8, 2009• 9

By Vince Kuraitis and David C. Kibbe

Being big fans of Clay Christensen and his theory of disruptive innovation (DI), we have been awaiting his just-released book The Innovator’s Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Healthcare . The book is co-authored by Dr. Jerome Grossman and Dr. Jason Hwang.

We have mixed reactions.

The book is mistitled. It should have been titled “The Innovator’s Diagnosis”. The book does a fantastic job at diagnosis (Dx) of problems in the U.S. health care system. It presents many new, innovative analytical frameworks and lenses through which to view the U.S. health system.

However, it’s weak on prescription (Rx): many of the proposed solutions are speculative, ungrounded, and/or defy political reality.

We understand that the very nature of disruptive innovation implies inevitable resistance from organizations that benefit economically from the status quo. But at some point a proposed solution becomes so disruptive that you have to suspend reality to believe that it could be adopted or implemented — and many proposed solutions in this book enter that realm.

The book applies Christensen’s general theory of DI specifically to the health care system. It addresses questions such as:

What is DI?
Why is it important to create an environment in health care where DI can flourish?
How can we create the right environment in health care for DI to flourish?

The introductory chapter of the book is available here at no charge (right column under Downloads). It’s a great overview.

Sanjay Gupta as Surgeon General? Not so fast.

Jan 8, 2009• 15

By VAL JONES MD

Sguptalarge150x150 This week’s news that Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s medical correspondent, is being considered for the office of
Surgeon General by President-elect Obama came as quite a shock to me. I’ve met and interviewed 3 of the
recent Surgeons General over the past few years. Of course, I like
Sanjay Gupta as a reporter. He’s a fine communicator and does a good
job covering subjects for a consumer audience. But I don’t think he has
the gravitas or appropriate experience for the role of Surgeon General
of the United States.

I spoke with one source close to the nomination proceedings, and he
said that most senior people were secretly disappointed with the
choice. My source requested that I not reveal his name.

If Sanjay Gupta is confirmed as Surgeon General he will
achieve the immediate rank of admiral, even though he has no previous
military or public health experience whatsoever. It will be difficult
for Gupta to be taken seriously by peers at the Pentagon and State
Department. The office of Surgeon General is a very important position
given only to the most senior and experienced medical professionals
with decades of achievements in their fields. Gupta is a good reporter,
he should consider a role in public relations for the U.S. government,
not the office of Surgeon General.

The Five Myths of Healthcare Reform

Jan 8, 2009• 5

By ROBERT LASZEWSKI

The arguments that the widespread use of health information technology (HIT), improving health status, expanding outcomes research, implementing pay-for-performance systems, and covering everyone will make it possible for us to afford comprehensive health care reform are commonly cited by people on both sides of the political aisle. It’s all a myth.

Undoubtedly, these ideas will be at the core of any number of health care reform proposals as we begin the 2009 health care reform effort.There is nothing wrong with any of these things and all can make a positive contribution toward improving both the cost of and especially the quality in our health care system. All should be part of a reform proposal.The problem is that none of them would make more than a modest dent in what a reformed system would cost us and not come anywhere near close to
accomplishing the objective of stabilizing our health care costs much less reducing them.

Commentology

Jan 8, 2009

Longtime THCB reader Barry Carol writes in on Matthew’s "Shocker …"

"Most hospital CEO’s, especially those who oversee academic medical centers, would probably tell you that their profit margins are quite low and that they could not make ends meet or continue to provide the quality of care they do now if they had to accept Medicare rates from all comers, even with no uncompensated care …"

David Kibbe continued the ongoing dialogue on the thread on the "Rebooting Health IT" series he is co-authoring with Brian Klepper.

"Having thoughtful physicians like yourself enter the debate and
discussion is one of the primary reasons that Brian Klepper and I are
doing these blogs on re-thinking health IT! Thanks for your input,
which I think is brilliant … Let’s not forget the story of John Snow and the removal of the Broad
Street pump handle, during the deadly cholera outbreak in London in
1854. While all the experts were debating the causes of the infection
and what to do about it, Dr. Snow had the simplest and most direct
answer of all: remove access to the offending source of the calamity."