Information technology-naive defense lawyers vs. " strident critic of electronic health records "
A tale from the trenches.In recent years, as a result of the 2010 IT-related injury and 2011 death of my mother, I have engaged myself as an independent EHR forensic expert regarding evidentiary and patient harm issues in medical malpractice litigation. Interestingly and disappointingly, I still often find that hospital attitudes towards health IT safety and information transparency have changed little since 2010 or, for that matter, the 1990s when I did my postdoc in medical informatics. Hospitals and defense attorneys often (ab)use the lack of technology experience of judges to delay or prevent evidentiary tra...
Source: Health Care Renewal - September 1, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: bad health IT Heathkit H8 Jay Hancock Kaiser Health News medical malpractice PICIS Pulsecheck Source Type: blogs
Who Guards the Guardians? - From DeVry at a Time of Alleged Fraud to Anti-Fraud Enforcement for the Department of Education
Discussion - In GeneralWe could start a discussion ofconflicts of interest, and even therevolving door, but,...Thus, as anopinion piece in the Atlantic asserted, the appointment of Dr Schmoke " provoked complaints from critics who pointed out that DeVry recently settled several claims brought against it by regulators alleging it had engaged in some of the very abuses the unit is charged with eliminating. " A writer for Gizmodoput it more bluntly, the new student protection bureau of the federal government just hired a guy who worked at the same company whose malicious practicesinspired the creation of that new ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - August 31, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: deception DeVry Inc Donald Trump fraud legal settlements medical schools offshore medical schools Source Type: blogs
A Stealth Marketer Goes Through the Revolving Door to ... the President's Council of Economic Advisors?!
Stealthy, deceptive systematicmarketing,lobbying, andpolicy advocacy campaigns on behalf of big health care organizations, often pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies, have long been a subject of Health Care Renewal. A relatively recently revealedexample was the stealth marketing campaign used by GlaxoSmithKline to sell its antidepressant Paxil. This campaign includedmanipulating andsuppressing clinical research,bribing physicians to prescribe the drug, use ofkey opinion leaders as disguised marketers, and manipulation ofcontinuing medical education. Other notable examples included Jo...
Source: Health Care Renewal - August 24, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: conflicts of interest deception Donald Trump revolving doors stealth health policy advocacy stealth lobbying stealth marketing Source Type: blogs
Health Care Non-Profit Organizations Ignored Conflicts of Interest or Potential Corruption Generated by Mar a Lago Fundraisers, But Drew the Line at Supporting Nazi Sympathizers
Leaders of big health care organizations have long made excuses for rampantconflicts of interest in health care. Usually, their rationales included something about the need to collaborate with industry to spark innovation. However, some leaders may have been directly benefiting from such conflicts (e.g., academic leaders on the payrolls of drug, device and biotechnology firms, even on the firms 'boards). Others may not have been, but were making millions in the current system, so why rock the boat? Meanwhile, the risks these conflicts posed ofhealth care corruption were not a subject of polite conve...
Source: Health Care Renewal - August 20, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: Cleveland Clinic conflicts of interest Donald Trump health care corruption Source Type: blogs
Can We Challenge Health Care Corruption Under Morally Failed Government Leadership?
Introduction: Health Care CorruptionAn important theme ofHealth Care Renewal has beenhealth care corruption as a cause of health care dysfunction.Transparency International (TI) defines corruption asAbuse of entrusted power for private gainIn 2006,TI published a report on health care corruption, which asserted that corruption is widespread throughout the world, serious, and causes severe harm to patients and society.the scale of corruption is vast in both rich and poor countries.Also,Corruption might mean the difference between life and death for those in need of urgent care. It is invariably the poor in society who are af...
Source: Health Care Renewal - August 13, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: Donald Trump health care corruption Source Type: blogs
What the US " Health Care Reform " Debate Did Not Address
It looks like the bizarre process in the US Senate ostensibly to " repeal and replace Obamacare " (aka the Affordable Care Act, or ACA)may be ending, at least for now. I can only hope that further discussion of health care reform will let sanity prevail, and start to address the major issues that have led to the massive dysfunction of US health care, but were not discussed during the latest kerfuffle (and not even discussed much in the real debate that preceded the introduction of the ACA.)OnHealth Care Renewal we have discussed some of the issues that have received much less attention than the Senate process and the...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 31, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: health care reform Obamacare ppaca Source Type: blogs
The Mysterious Demise of World Health Networks - Fugitive Kazakhs, the Trump Organization, Dodgy Visa Applications, Oh My
DiscussionAs we have previously discussed, based on the doctrines ofneoliberalism ormarket fundamentalism, the US health care system is increasingly dominated by for-profit corporations. The practice of medicine is increasinglycorporate. Hospitals and hospital systems are increasingly owned by for-profit corporations. Health insurance is increasingly provided by for-profit companies. Drug, device and biotechnology companies have been almost entirely commercial for a long time. And touted as sources of innovations, there are entrepreneurial start-ups everywhere offering new products and s...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 27, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: crime Donald Trump market fundamentalism marketing neoliberalism public health Steward Health Care Source Type: blogs
Who Benefits from our Current Health Care Dysfunction? - Mallinckrodt's Leadership Maintains Impunity After Well Publicized Opioid Settlement
DiscussionMallinkcrodt made settlements of four legal cases since 2010, involving kickbacks to physicians, various deceptions, and anti-competitive behavior. The settlements never involved severe enough penalties to the company to really affect its bottom line, never required admission of responsibility, or any accountability by top executives whose huge remuneration were doubtlessly based on the revenues brought in by bad behavior. Yet US Attorney General continued the Kabuki performance by proclaiming he would " hold them accountable. " Sessions just slapped the company on the wrist again, with a wet no...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 20, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: Acthar antitrust deception executive compensation impunity kickbacks legal settlements Mallinckrodt Questcor restraint of competition Source Type: blogs
Inexact Sciences
Thoughts on the place of science in an era of false convictionSome recent articles, noted by a few of us in journals regularly monitored byHCR bloggers, provide real food for thought in our New World Order of alternate facts, fake news and truthiness.In a recent number of the still intrepidly pay-wall-free Guardian, development economist John Rapleysummarizeshis new bookTwilight of the Money Gods. This summary is the best we in the colonies can do until this month ' s UK publication of the full volume makes it to our shores. (Rapley, a true globalist, both an academic and a public intellectual experienced a...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 17, 2017 Category: Health Management Source Type: blogs
Gutting the Health Care Corporate Strike Force
DiscussionSo the Trump administration proposes two part time attorneys to drain the health care corporate swamp. That seems like bailing out the Titanic with teaspoons. But should we expect anything else from an administration that is being increasinglyidentified with corruption and impunity itself?We have frequently discussed outrightcorruption in health care as one of the most important causes of health care dysfunction. Transparency International (TI) defines corruption asAbuse of entrusted power for private gainIn 2006,TI published a report on health care corruption, which asserted that corruption is widesp...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 13, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: deferred prosecution agreement Donald Trump health care corruption impunity legal settlements US Department of Justice Source Type: blogs
More Dumb Things Politicians and Political Appointees Say About Health Policy
As wepreviously discussed, the fierce debate about whether to revise, or " repeal and replace Obamacare " , more formally, the Affordable Care Act, continues in the US. The legislators in the US House of Representatives, and then the US Senate who have written " repeal and replace " bills have done so without any obvious input from health care professionals, health care policy experts, or patients, much less legislators from the opposition party, and so far have impeded any consideration of these bills by legislative committees. Nonetheless, many of the politicians involved in the debates, and other politicians...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 7, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: health care reform ill-informed management logical fallacies Source Type: blogs
A $1.7 Million/ Year CEO of a Safety Net Hospital - Alleged to Have Hired a Dangerous Surgeon, Paid Unethical Bonuses, and Associated with Organized Crime
We have long contended that a major reason for health care dysfunction isperverse incentives, including those that allowtop health care leaders to become rich by putting money ahead of patient care. We have presented case after case supporting this point,most recently including a collection of generously compensated top executives of non-profit hospital systems whose pay seemed disproportionate to their personal achievement, and unrelated to their hospitals ' clinical outcomes or quality of care.Such cases, with their recitations of monetary amounts and repeated public relations talking points, can be rather dry.&nbs...
Source: Health Care Renewal - June 29, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: crime executive compensation fraud hospital systems hospitals mission-hostile management perverse incentives Source Type: blogs
Follow the Money: Non-Profit Hospital CEOs Quietly Collect Their Millions While US Health Care Reform Battle Rages
ConclusionsThe current inflamed discussion of " Obamacare " and Republican attempts to " repeal and replace " it focuses on the costs of care and how they affect individual patients. Examples include concerns about health insurance premiums that are or could be unaffordable for the typical person; insurance that fails to cover many costs, and thus may leave patients at risk of bankruptcy due to severe illness; poor people unable to or who might become unable to obtain any insurance, and perhaps any health care. Yet there is little discussion of what really drives high and ever increasing health care costs (whil...
Source: Health Care Renewal - June 22, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: boards of trustees executive compensation health care reform hospital systems hospitals non-profit organizations Source Type: blogs
Health Care Corruption No Longer a Taboo Topic?
We have been going on about the ruinous effects ofhealth care corruption, the role ofimpunity in enabling worsening corruption, our lack of good ways to challenge these problems, and our ongoing inability to even discuss what amounts to taboo topics (which we dubbed the "anechoic effect. " ) But as corruption, and crime are increasingly linked to the most powerful leaders in the US, it becomes harder to deny that we have a huge problem with corruption in general, and thus maybe it becomes harder to deny we have a huge problem with health care corruption (see also our posts onconflicts of interest,crime, and specifica...
Source: Health Care Renewal - June 14, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: anechoic effect Donald Trump health care corruption Source Type: blogs
Trumping Up a Health Care Charity - Trump Organization Received Increasing Revenue from a Children's Cancer Care Charity
While health and health care are clearly not central interests of the currentUS President, Donald J Trump, we have noted some disturbing stories about the effects of his leadership on health care. Most importantly, prior to the election, a story appeared alleging that Mr Trump licensed his name, and actively supported the Trump Network, which sold dodgy vitamin supplements to gullible consumers based on the results of urine tests of unproven, at best, accuracy (lookhere). While Mr Trump is controversial, to say the least, on multiple levels, never in modern history can I recall a president who was alleged to have bee...
Source: Health Care Renewal - June 7, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: boards of trustees cancer Donald Trump health care corruption health care foundations mission-hostile management Source Type: blogs
