healthcare costs

Healthcare is  complex, complicated, and touches every single individual on this planet. The average spend per capita on healthcare costs is rising tremendously year over year and the governmental focus seems to be on increasing premiums, changing tax rates and focusing completely only on efficiency gains. Read More »

Six Republican Senators are asking the healthcare community for input on “recalibrating” health information technology policy, arguing that there are several problems with the current trajectory of the meaningful use program. Read More »

To be honest, I never thought we’d get much further than Steven Brill’s epic Time cover story – Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us. We had seen some of the data in bits and pieces over the years, and we knew that many Americans were driven to bankruptcy through medical expenses, but Steven gave us fresh insight into the personal devastation behind the sheer cost of care. Read More »

Even as the Affordable Care Act is in its nascent stages, some states are already looking toward 2017 when they can request waivers to opt out of the healthcare exchanges. And a small, but persistent, movement has popped up toward a single payer system as an alternative to participating in the exchanges.

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The United States spends around $2 Trillion on healthcare a year, making it the most expensive health system in the World, and yet we consistently rank poorly for key markers such as life expectancy and infant mortality rate.  Our system needs to become more agile with increased patient engagement and enrollment in order to create a better and more coordinated care system. Read More »

It’s a common patient complaint about the people involved in their care: “Sometimes the left hand doesn’t seem to know what the right hand is doing. I don’t feel everyone is working together.” To address this issue, nurses at ThedaCare employed lean techniques to create a patient-centered, team-based model that’s producing solid results. Read More »

The philosopher and writer John Thackara, a senior fellow at the Royal College of Art, in London, scours the world for examples of the ways social innovation can improve the health of communities, which he explores in his blog, doorsofperception.com. He recently spoke at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health about his new book, How to Thrive in the Next Economy. He explores the ways sometimes small steps can make a tremendous difference in solving some of the most intractable challenges in delivering health care...

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