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National Academy of Medicine

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Healthcare swims in a sea of conflicts of interests

conflict Painting by  Elihu Vedder (1836–1923). Photographed in 2007 by Carol Highsmith. 
Roy Poses, M.D., in his Healthcare Renewal site comments:
“The theme continues.  A recent prominent Health Affairs blog post on {physician} burnout omitted discussion of underlying causes, much less promote resistance to them.  Now it turns out that the lead author was not only the well-paid CEO of a very prominent non-profit health system, but had just been offered a board position at giant pharma company Merck.  A recent prominent National Academy of Medicine report on health care reform again omitted discussion of any underlying causes of health care dysfunction that might disturb the powers that be.  Many of its authors were also members of the boards of directors of health care corporations.  Now it turns out that one of them had long been on the board of Amgen, and may have had other complex relationships with the pharma industry.   Who, other than Health Care Renewal readers,  knew conflicts of interest in health care were so complicated …. ) ? These newly noted conflicts of interest underlined how current discussions of health care reform are influenced, if not dominated by people with strong ties to organizations, particularly large health care corporations, that benefit from the status quo.  What kind of reform would they produce?  True health care reform minimally requires discussions lead by health care professionals, unbiased policy experts, patients and the public at large.  Contributions – oral, written, or monetary – from those who personally are profiting from the status quo should be met with requisite skepticism.”
To read Dr. Poses’s site, please hit this link.
To read the Health Affairs piece on physician burnout, please hit this link.

Cutting hospitals’ vast supplies waste could make big dent in overall health costs

dumpster

A huge source of potential savings in America’s astronomically expensive healthcare system are the vast quantities of medical supplies and equipment that hospitals and other providers waste.

Read about  Elizabeth McLellan,  R.N., a former resident nurse who now runs Partners for World Health, a nonprofit that collects such waste, much of which is still safe for use, and distributes it to providers in such poor countries as Syria and Uganda.

A ProPublica piece about her notes:

“Ten years ago, McLellan, a registered nurse, shocked to see what hospitals were tossing out, began asking them to give her their castoffs instead. In 2009 she launched Partners for World Health, a nonprofit that now has four warehouses throughout Maine. Today, she and hundreds of volunteers collect medical equipment and supplies from a network of hospitals and medical clinics, sort them and eventually ship containers full of them to such countries as Greece, Syria and Uganda.

“‘This is money. This is one of the reasons why your health insurance is so expensive,” she says.

The article continues:

“Talk to experts and many agree that waste would be a good place to start. In 2012 the National Academy of Medicine estimated the U.S. healthcare system squandered $765 billion a year, more than the entire budget of the Defense Department. . ..The annual waste, the report estimated, could have paid for the insurance coverage of 150 million American workers — both the employer and employee contributions.”

To read the ProPublica article, please hit this link.

 


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