Unintended consequences – we need to think like chess masters
After 12 years of blogging, I wonder if I should have titled this blog “unintended consequences”. So many rants focus on the unintended consequences that follow from health care policies.
The aphorism (falsely attributed to Samuel Johnson) states “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.
Too often our policy makers, be they bureaucrats in government, insurance company managers or guideline creators, think like a chess beginner. They see the problem, and take the obvious solution. As H.L Mencken did say, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - August 5, 2014 Category: Internal Medicine Authors: rcentor Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs
The Price of Compassion - Commercialized Hospices and the Mistreatment of Vulnerable Patients
Introduction - Commercialized Hospices We have occasionally written about the rise of the commercialized hospice industry, and concerns that commercialized hospices may not be providing the compassionate care they promise. As we have discussed before, the hospice movement began with small, non-profit, community based organizations meant to provide compassionate palliative care to the terminally ill. However, in the US, the hospice movement has been co-opted by commercial hospices, often run by large corporations, which may put profit ahead of compassion.Several long investigative articles have appeared this yea...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 10, 2014 Category: Health Management Tags: Carlyle Group deception Fillmore Partners Gentiva Golden Living HCR ManorCare hospices marketing private equity Vitas Source Type: blogs
The New Conscious Life Workshop
I’m delighted to announce that we’re now taking registrations for a brand new 3-day workshop: The Conscious Life Workshop. Call it CLW for short.
This is an all new workshop, so don’t confuse it with past events like the Conscious Growth Workshop or the Conscious Success Workshop.
The focus of CLW is lifestyle design — it’s specifically for people who want to create and enjoy a lifestyle of greater happiness, fulfillment, and heart-centeredness AND to make their path financially sustainable and abundant.
We’ll definitely spend some time helping you identify your desired lifestyle goals...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - June 25, 2014 Category: Life Coaches Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Balance Career & Work Consciousness & Awareness Entrepreneurship General Goals & Goal Setting Motivation Passion Passive Income Personal Development Productivity Public Speaking Purpose Self-Discipline Success Time Management Source Type: blogs
A Real Example of Public Relations Talking Points to Justify Outsize Executive Compensation - and Why We Should No Longer be Fooled
We frequently discuss outsize executive compensation in health care organizations as both a symptom and a cause of these organizations' poor leadership and governance, and hence of widespread health care dysfunction.The Latest Stories of Huge CEO Pay Stories of gargantuan compensation appear almost daily. For example, some headlines about pay at hospitals and hospital systems in the last few months included,Millionaire health care?With high costs and insurance premiums in Garfield County, focus falls on pay of a hospital’s chief executiveAudit faults UMass Medical School for improper documentation of $2 million i...
Source: Health Care Renewal - June 25, 2014 Category: Health Management Tags: executive compensation logical fallacies public relations You heard it here first Source Type: blogs
To Properly Care for Veterans, Do We Really Need a VA Health System?
<p><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">The ongoing VA scandal is indeed unfortunate and sad. In a speech on May 30, 2014, in Washington, DC, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/31/us/politics/va-chief-eric-shinseki.html">Eric K. Shinseki apologized</a> for the “systemic, totally unacceptable lack of integrity” shown by some administrators in managing the Veterans Administration health care system hospitals and clinics. Within hours of the apology, Secretary Shinseki <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/31/us/politics/eric-shinseki-resigns-as...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - June 6, 2014 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Hayley Dittus-Doria Tags: Health Care Bioethics and the Law Distributive Justice fraud syndicated Source Type: blogs
Fool Me Twice? - Boehringer Ingelheim, Medtronic Settle Lawsuits Alleging Deceptive Marketing
It seems like it has been really quiet on the legal settlement front in the US, but maybe corporate executives wanted to wait until things calmed down after the unofficial start of summer to let out news that some people might not think reflected well on them. So this week it was time to announce two new legal settlements of allegations of bad behavior by corporate health were announced, as we will list in alphabetical order....Boehringer Ingelheim Settles Suits Alleging it Hid Data About Pradaxa HarmsAs per Bloomberg,Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, the German family-owned drugmaker, agreed to pay $650 million to settle t...
Source: Health Care Renewal - June 3, 2014 Category: Health Management Tags: Boehringer Ingelheim deception kickbacks legal settlements manipulating clinical research marketing Medtronic Pradaxa Source Type: blogs
VA Secretary Resigns
This week Eric Shinseki announced that he would step down as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. According to the reporting of Bob Schieffer and others, it is becoming clear the VA hospital system has a systemic problem with administrators “gaming the system” in order to report better performance for their hospitals and win bonuses. “The idea that anyone would hold secret lists so people wouldn’t know... // Read More » (Source: blog.bioethics.net)
Source: blog.bioethics.net - June 1, 2014 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Cody Chambers Tags: Health Care bioethics Ethical Method / Grounding Health Care Practice syndicated Source Type: blogs
Lessons from the VA – bad performance measures and insufficient primary care
This article delineates the problem beautifully. As a former VA physician (part time for 20 years and only inpatient the last 10 years) I can tell you that the patients who frequent the VA require intense primary care. They often have multiple medical problems and often psychiatric problems. Now the electronic medical record is the best I have seen, but it still takes time to type notes, and review the charts.
The VA has great benefits, and often reasonable hours, but the salaries are not great from primary care. And the US has a shortage of primary care physicians, especially internists (who the VA seems to favor). P...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - May 30, 2014 Category: Internal Medicine Authors: rcentor Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs
"Texas VA Run Like a ‘Crime Syndicate,’ Whistleblower Says" - Can Reports About the Benefits of EHRs at the VA Healthcare System Be Trusted?
This article just appeared:Texas VA Run Like a ‘Crime Syndicate,’ Whistleblower SaysMay 27, 2014http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/27/exclusive-texas-va-run-like-a-crime-syndicate-whistleblower-says.htmlFor years, employees at a Texas VA complained that their bosses were cooking the books. For years, the VA insisted there was no widespread wrongdoing. New whistleblower testimony and internal documents implicate an award-winning VA hospital in Texas in widespread wrongdoing—and what appears to be systemic fraud.Emails and VA memos obtained exclusively by The Daily Beast provide what is among the most compre...
Source: Health Care Renewal - May 28, 2014 Category: Health Management Tags: CPRS health care corruption healthcare IT unintended consequences Veterans Administration medical scandal Veterans Affairs VistA Source Type: blogs
Former Randolph Hospital CEO, Bob Morrison on "Nurses' Week": The Most Hollow And Hypocritical Of "Thank You's"
As I hold my breath . . . anticipating the certification of Keith Crisco’s loss to Clay Aiken in the Democratic Primary for North Carolina’s 2nd District Congressional Seat, the perpetually-out-of-touch-with-the-community-they-serve Editorial staff at the Courier Tribune are once again giving Crisco’s long-time-good-buddy-and-partner-in-mill-town-killing-crime, Bob Morrison, a forum from which he can rehabilitate his reputation as Asheboro’s own $700,000 man. Just like Crisco’s stint on the Asheboro School Board gave “Evil Keith” the stones – if not the actual creds – to claim...
Source: Dr.J's HouseCalls - May 11, 2014 Category: Pediatricians Source Type: blogs
The Pervasiveness of Health Care Corruption as Shown by Another Roundup of Legal Settlements
Legal settlements are one way to document unethical and even corrupt behavior by large health care organizations, even if they may not deter bad behavior in the future. It is time for another roundup of settlements by large pharmaceutical and device companies, presented in alphabetical orderAbbott LaboratoriesThis one goes back to late December, 2013. As described in the Chattanoogan (from Tennessee):Abbott Laboratories, a global healthcare company, has agreed to pay $5.475 million to settle alleged violations of the False Claims Act, and other federal laws and regulations in connection with the operation of ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - April 30, 2014 Category: Health Management Tags: Abbott antitrust Baxter Endo Health Solutions fraud Hospira kickbacks legal settlements Neurontin Pfizer restraint of competition RICO Source Type: blogs
Video Game Addiction—Is it Real?
Doodle Jump. Candy Crush. FarmVille. Angry Birds. Cut the Rope. Fruit Ninja. Words With Friends.
Nearly everyone with a smartphone or tablet has played one of these video games. It’s easy to get swept up in the bright colors, cutesy characters—and the satisfaction you feel when you finally complete a difficult level. So you keep playing, and playing, and playing. Lots of people say games like these are “addictive.” But, are they, really?
Maybe. Addiction Science Award Winner Ethan Guinn definitely thought so.
Dopamine: Sweet Rewards for the Brain
Rewards in video games, such as points or bonuses, are surprising a...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - April 9, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: Sara Bellum Source Type: blogs
EHR recall: Use of this affected product may cause serious adverse health consequences, including death
Here is another example of a grossly defective health IT product, this from last year but only posted by FDA publicly on 3/14/2014 at http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/SafetyAlertsforHumanMedicalProducts/ucm389356.htm: "There was an occurrence where the patient case data did not match the patient data when the case was recalled in the Anesthesia Care Record (ACR) in that it included data from another case. Use of this affected product may cause serious adverse health consequences, including death."One wonders why problems like this are found in the field when real patients are involved, not in the te...
Source: Health Care Renewal - March 24, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: FDA recall healthcare IT defects healthcare IT risk McKesson McKesson Anesthesia Care Source Type: blogs
Doctor Glaxo is here to teach you
GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK) plans to hire doctors to educate their peers about its drugs instead of paying external speakers, a further change to its marketing practices following a record fraud settlement in the U.S.The drugmaker is also investing in improving its multichannel marketing strategy through media such as online streaming of educational content, Deirdre Connelly, head of Glaxo’s U.S. pharmaceuticals business, said in an interview in Philadelphia. The changes come at a time when London-based Glaxo is introducing products recently approved to treat skin cancer, HIV and respiratory diseases.Glaxo has been re...
Source: PharmaGossip - March 17, 2014 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Be an Apprentice for 5 Months
If the following four items apply to you, then you might appreciate this post, which is about a special coaching program. Otherwise, if you don’t qualify for all four, there’s no need to read the rest.
You’d rather be self-employed than work for someone else.
You recognize that you could significantly increase your income by improving your focus and efficiency.
You care about following your path with a heart, so it’s important that you earn your money through meaningful, purpose-driven work that has a positive impact on people’s lives.
You’re ready to invest in coaching from an experien...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - February 27, 2014 Category: Life Coaches Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Business Career & Work Entrepreneurship Passive Income Success Wealth & Money Source Type: blogs
