When Common Sense And Public Health Prevail: Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt
On June 27, 2016 the United States Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Whole Women’s Health et al. v. Hellerstedt, one of its culminating decisions for the 2015-2016 term. By a 5-3 majority, the Court ruled unconstitutional two specific provisions of a Texas statute (House Bill 2), which was enacted in 2013 following a dramatic debate that featured a national headline-making filibuster by State Senator Wendy Davis.
The two provisions at issue were first, a requirement that physicians performing surgical or medical abortions have active admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles, and second, that clinics perfo...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 1, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Sara Rosenbaum Tags: Equity and Disparities Featured Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Public Health Quality Abortion Planned Parenthood v. Casey Supreme Court Texas Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt Women's Health Source Type: blogs
Waiting time policies in the health sector
Office of Health Economics -The main purpose of this briefing is to discuss waiting time policies in the health sector from an international perspective and to highlight which policies have worked in the last decade in OECD countries. It also looks at how to compare waiting times internationally and where the UK stands in those international figures.
Briefing
Office of Health Economics - publications (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - June 28, 2016 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS measurement and performance Patient involvement, experience and feedback Source Type: blogs
Does Arnold Schwarzenegger Deserve Better Care Than Our Veterans Do?
By KAREN SIBERT, MD
When Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor, he decided that you and I don’t need to have physicians in charge of our anesthesia care, and he signed a letter exempting California from that federal requirement. Luckily most California hospitals didn’t agree, and they ignored his decision.
When he needed open-heart surgery to replace a failing heart valve, though, Governor Schwarzenegger saw things differently. He chose Steven Haddy, MD, the chief of cardiovascular anesthesiology at Keck Medicine of USC, to administer his anesthesia.
Now some people in the federal government have decided that veterans i...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 20, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Will The Medical Tricorder From Star Trek Become Real?
Analyzing disease instantly: the medical tricorder has been one of the most exciting futuristic technologies in medicine since Star Trek. But will it ever get to the black bag of General Practitioners?
As a movie fan, I love talking about how the science fiction movies of the last 100 years have shaped our ideas about medical technology. When university students doing film studies asked me to give a talk on how sci-fi influenced medical technology, I dedicated a whole section to technology inspired by Star Trek. The long list includes telepresence, the hypospray for painless injections, voice–activated communicators, the...
Source: The Medical Futurist - May 25, 2016 Category: Information Technology Authors: berci.mesko Tags: Portable Diagnostics GC1 Source Type: blogs
Optimal hospital payment rules under rationing by random waiting
Centre for Health Economics (CHE) - This paper derives optimal rules for paying hospitals in a public health care system in which providers can choose quality and random patient demand is rationed by waiting time.
Report
CHE news (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - May 5, 2016 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS finances and productivity Quality of care and clinical outcomes Source Type: blogs
Mental health services: preparations for improving access
This report finds that the Department of Health and NHS England are making progress, particularly in setting priorities and national leadership, but significant risks to implementing the access and waiting times programme remain. The strongest areas are the clear objectives and strong leadership, and a governance framework is being developed. The greatest challenges for the future are collecting data to show whether the standards are being met, building the mental health workforce and reinforcing incentives for providers. It finds that full information does not exist to measure how far the NHS is from meeting the access an...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - April 20, 2016 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Leadership and leadership development Mental Health NHS measurement and performance Quality of care and clinical outcomes Regulation, governance and accountability Workforce and employment Source Type: blogs
Quarterly report on the performance of the NHS foundation trusts and NHS trusts: 9 months ended 31 December 2015
Monitor - This analysis of NHS providers' operational and financial performance shows the sector as a whole made £741 million in efficiency savings between April and December 2015. However, the report finds that NHS providers are under sustained pressure from an increase in demand for care, issues with discharging medically fit patients, and high costs. As a result, many providers missed several national waiting times standards, such as the A&E performance measure, in the last 3 months of 2015. In addition, the sector as a whole reported a deficit of £2.26 billion in the 9 months to the end of December 2015...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - February 22, 2016 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS finances and productivity NHS measurement and performance Source Type: blogs
NICE indicators programme: consultation on potential new indicators
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) - This consultation seeks feedback on potential new indicators for inclusion in the NICE indicator menu. The proposed new indicators aim to improve the quality of care for a variety of conditions, including: waiting times for antenatal care; improved diagnosis of atrial fibrillation; targets for diabetes services; health assessments and prevention of emergency admissions for people with learning disabilities and autism. This consultation closes on 29th February 2016.
Consultation
Response form
Press release (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - February 2, 2016 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Consultations Source Type: blogs
Toyota-ism vs Taylor-ism
By MARK GRABAN
If you’re new to the idea of “Lean,” I invite you to download and read chapter 1 of my book Lean Hospitals.
Hat tip to Suresh for pointing me toward this article that was just published January 14th in the New England Journal of Medicine: “Medical Taylorism“
NEJM is the same journal that published Dr. Don Berwick’s article about Kaizen and Dr. Deming in 1989, how those concepts would be helpful in healthcare. Dr. Berwick realizes, as he talks about in that article, that not all factories are the same. Some are managed better than others. Employees are treated better in the “Lean” factories...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 16, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Simon Nath Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Toyota-ism vs Taylorism
By MARK GRABAN
If you’re new to the idea of “Lean,” I invite you to download and read chapter 1 of my book Lean Hospitals.
Hat tip to Suresh for pointing me toward this article that was just published January 14th in the New England Journal of Medicine: “Medical Taylorism“
NEJM is the same journal that published Dr. Don Berwick’s article about Kaizen and Dr. Deming in 1989, how those concepts would be helpful in healthcare. Dr. Berwick realizes, as he talks about in that article, that not all factories are the same. Some are managed better than others. Employees are treated better in the “Lean” factories...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 16, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Simon Nath Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
If urgent care centers don’t innovate, how long will they last?
Part of a series.
Urgent care clinics provide a useful service to the community, but their days may be numbered with survival questionable resulting from intense competition from the chain pharmacies and soon from Walmart.
Urgent care companies began to proliferate 30 years ago but have gained traction in recent years as emergency room wait times rapidly lengthened. Urgent care is less expensive than the ER, is open 24/7 or at least begins early and continues late, and the staff is dedicated to minor and moderate medical problems that need rapid or immediate attention. Urgent care centers do not require an appointment like...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - November 27, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Stephen C. Schimpff, MD Tags: Physician Primary care Source Type: blogs
Making the case for public spending
This report, written on commission by the Fabian Society, warns that severe spending cuts are already undermining public service quality, and that if the Chancellor doesn’t rethink his plans to cut spending further, public service outcomes are set to plummet. It argues that public spending cuts have led to strained public services, less provision and longer waiting times for key services.
Report
Press release (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - November 24, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS finances and productivity Workforce and employment Source Type: blogs
Improving the quality of orthotics services in England
NHS England -This guidance issues a call for local commissioners to improve how vital ortheses are provided, alongside a suite of guidance and resources to help them do so. It finds that there are variations in the quality of services and waiting times to access them across the country and aims to help local CCGs address this variation. It has been produced in cooperation with local commissioners, providers and patient groups, and draws on the findings of a recent review of services by NHS Quality Observatory triggered by concerns raised by Healthwatch England.
Guidance
NHS England - news (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - November 20, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Commissioning Quality of care and clinical outcomes Source Type: blogs
Closer to critical? QualityWatch annual statements 2015
QualityWatch - This analysis of the quality of NHS care by the Nuffield Trust and The Health Foundation has found that waiting times for hospital and other care services are under severe strain and are unlikely to improve in the near future. It also highlights areas of variation in care quality, pointing to disparities between child and adult diabetes services and differences between the care received by people with mental and physical health needs. The report stresses that despite this there are still many areas of excellent care despite considerable pressures on the NHS.
Report
Press release (Source: Health Manage...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - November 2, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Patient involvement, experience and feedback Quality of care and clinical outcomes Source Type: blogs
How long until the next bomb? Why nuclear deterrence doesn’t work
Every day one sees politicians on TV assuring us that nuclear deterrence works because there no nuclear weapon has been exploded in anger since 1945. They clearly have no understanding of statistics.
With a few plausible assumptions, we can easily calculate that the time until the next bomb explodes could be as little as 20 years.
Be scared, very scared.
The first assumption is that bombs go off at random intervals. Since we have had only one so far (counting Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a single event), this can’t be verified. But given the large number of small influences that control when a bomb explodes (whether...
Source: DC's goodscience - October 24, 2015 Category: Science Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Politicians politics bomb deterrant exponential distribution Markov nuclear statistics Trident Source Type: blogs
