From a Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) release (12/17/19):
Seema Verma, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, sits down for a rare one-on-one interview with special correspondent Sarah Varney of Kaiser Health News. They discuss President Trump’s plan for sustaining public health insurance programs, how the administration would respond if Obamacare is struck down by the courts in the future, and the latest Medicare for all proposals.
From a Harvard Gazette online article:
“This work cements the idea that, for the right patients, we can deliver hospital-level care outside of the four walls of the traditional hospital, and provides more of the data we need to make home hospital care the standard of care in our country,” said corresponding author David Levine, a physician and researcher in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care.
“It opens up so many exciting possibilities — it’s exciting for patients because it gives them the opportunity to be in a familiar setting, and it’s exciting for clinicians because we get to be with a patient in that person’s own surroundings. As a community-minded hospital, this is a way for us to bring excellent care to our community.”
The home hospital model of care — in which select patients receive hospital-level care for an acute illness from the comfort of their own home instead of in a traditional hospital — has become increasingly popular across the U.S.
To read more: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/12/home-hospital-model-reduces-costs-by-38-improves-care/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNeAk4tovwI
Produced by WIRED Brand Lab with American Institute of Architects | How can design transform emergency rooms from one of the most stressful and chaotic places into a place of healing? Dr. Bon Ku and architect Billie Faircloth, AIA, break down the science behind designing a better work environment for hospitals.From a USA Today online article:
In people with Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas can’t make insulin. Those with the condition require several doses of insulin a day and spent $5,705 per person on it in 2016, an increase of $2,841, or 99%, per person since 2012, according to the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute.(Podcast interview “This Weekend With Gordon Deal”, 12-14-19)
Costs continue to rise, so much so that almost half of people with diabetes have temporarily skipped taking their insulin, according to a 2018 survey by UpWell Health, a Salt Lake City company that provides home delivery of medications and supplies for chronic conditions.
“Insulin prices doubled in a four-year period,” said Cathy Paessun, the director of the Central Ohio Diabetes Association. “They continue to go up, and the infuriating thing is that there is no change in the process for creating the product.”
To read article: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/12/09/insulin-prices-double-ohio-lawmakers-looking-answers/2629115001/
From a New York Times online article:
“Our data indicate that there are no low-risk procedures among patients who are frail,” Dr. Hall and his co-authors concluded in their study.
Dr. Hall’s research, recently published in JAMA Surgery, has found that frail, older adults are more likely than other patients to die after even supposedly minor procedures — and even when the surgery goes well, without complications.
After operations, frail patients find it harder than others to regain strength and mobility, and to return to independent lives. Doctors and researchers assess frailty in a variety of ways. Geriatricians often measure things like gait and grip strength, and look for unintended weight loss and exhaustion.
To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/13/health/frail-elderly-surgery.html
From a JAMA Network online release:
This systematic review and meta-analysis of 11 studies involving 21 517 physicians demonstrated an association between physician depressive symptoms and an increased risk for perceived medical errors (RR, 1.95; 95% CI, 1.63-2.33). We also found that the magnitude of the associations of physician depressive symptoms and perceived medical errors were relatively consistent across studies that assessed training and practicing physicians, providing additional evidence that physician depression has implications for the quality of care delivered by physicians at different career stages.
Medical errors are a major source of patient harm. Studies estimate that, in the United States, as many as 98 000 to 251 000 hospitalized patients die each year as result of a preventable adverse event.1–4 In addition, medical errors are a major source of morbidity5 and account for billions of dollars in financial losses to health care systems every year.6–9
Depressive symptoms are highly prevalent among physicians,10,11 and several studies have investigated the associations between physician depressive symptoms and medical errors.12–16 Although most studies on physician depressive symptoms and medical errors have identified a substantial association, their results are not unanimous, and questions regarding the direction of these associations remain open in recent literature.17
From a Becker’s Hospital Review online release:
“Today, most of the seniors we serve are utilizing easy-to-use mobile phone products and connected devices that are tailored for seniors and come with a range of relevant services,” Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said during an earnings call Nov. 26, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha.
“We also expect to advance our commercial business where the services we provide for seniors are paid for by insurance providers. This includes services such as remote monitoring based solutions that provide meaningful insights to improve timely care and reduce the cost to serve frail seniors,” she said.
Best Buy is known as the largest specialty electronics retailer in the U.S., and a key part of its growth strategy is centered on digital health initiatives.
In the past year, Best Buy has spent roughly $1 billion on acquisitions to expand its healthcare services, according to Forbes. The company’s expansion into healthcare has helped it overcome broader declines in consumer electronic sales, according to Bloomberg.
To read full report: https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/state/docs/2019_companion_en.pdf
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