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UrduSusan Dentzer, health-care analyst, commentator, journalist, and senior policy fellow at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, discusses local health systems, including how they are coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and best practices for reporting on the subject. Carla Anne Robbins, CFR adjunct senior fellow and former deputy editorial page editor at the New York Times, hosts the webinar.
Tag: Health Policy
Medicaid expansion meant better health for the most vulnerable low-income adults, study finds
The most vulnerable residents of Michigan say their health improved significantly after they enrolled in the state’s expanded Medicaid program, a new study finds. Those with extremely low incomes or multiple chronic health problems, and those who are Black, got the biggest health boosts. But participants of all backgrounds reported improvements.
Americans face greater risks if U.S. pulls from World Health Organization, say WVU health and policy experts
The Trump administration’s plan to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, effective July 6, 2021, could reshape global diplomacy and weaken public health efforts at home, particularly amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to West Virginia University experts in health and public policy.
Philadelphia Tax on Sweetened Drinks Led to Drop in Sales
Philadelphia’s tax on sweetened beverages led to a 38.9 percent drop in the volume of taxed beverages sold at small, independent retailers and a significant increase in the price of taxed beverages, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. This study builds on previous research that suggests beverage taxes can help reduce purchases of sugary drinks, led by Christina Roberto, PhD, an associate professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Penn, and senior author on this latest paper published in Health Affairs.
Global Summit on Interventional Pharmacoeconomics
The University of Chicago Medicine’s Center for Personalized Therapeutics is hosting a virtual summit from June 9 to July 1 to discuss interventional pharmacoeconomics.
Penn’s Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET) Receives $8 Million Grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
The Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET) at the University of Pennsylvania received an $8 million grant, to be distributed over the next five years, from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a renewal of its P30 Environmental Health Sciences Core Center (EHSCC) grant.
ISPOR Holds Its First Completely Virtual Conference
ISPOR concluded its Virtual ISPOR 2020 conference yesterday—its first completely virtual conference. The conference was redesigned as an online event when the COVID-19 pandemic required a necessary cancellation of the in-person conference.
Designing Health Policy for the Future
ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research opened its Virtual ISPOR 2020 conference this morning with its first plenary session, “Health Policy—Designing For the Future.”
Health Economics and Outcomes Research in the Era of COVID-19
ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) held a virtual plenary session today, “HEOR in the Era of COVID-19,” that featured a panel discussing the global COVID-19 crisis.
Sky-high surprise bills from air ambulance flights possible for many patients
When an emergency dispatcher calls for a helicopter to fly a critically ill patient to a hospital, they don’t have time to check whether they take the patient’s insurance. But after those patients land, 72% of them could face a potential “surprise bill” because their ambulance provider isn’t “in network” with their insurance, a new study of people with private insurance finds. So could 79% of those transported via ground ambulance.
Google-Apple contact tracing model gains ground, centralized approach ‘doomed to fail’
Faced with a devastating and unresolved pandemic, governments worldwide are grappling with how to begin re-opening their economies, while protecting the health of their citizens. And many are looking to the smartphones in our pockets as a contact tracing tool…
Virtual ISPOR 2020 Program and Speakers Announced
ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) announced today the program and speakers for Virtual ISPOR 2020.
UCLA Fielding School of Public Health experts available for media inquiries related to COVID-19
The UCLA Fielding School of Public Health has multiple experts available for media inquiries related to COVID-19. These include experts with English, Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, and Spanish fluency. They include: Professor Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez is an associate professor of…
ISPOR Announces Virtual ISPOR 2020
ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research announced today that its annual, international conference has been reimagined due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will now take place as a virtual conference.
Both our political past and present shape America’s response to COVID-19, says policy expert
One researcher at West Virginia University suggests that we need to set aside political partisanship as the U.S. responds to the novel coronavirus. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency Friday (March 13). Earlier this week, the World Health Organization declared it…
The Affordable Care Act’s Most Pressing Concern? Gaps in Medicaid Coverage.
Two million of the nation’s poorest working-age adults remain unable to access affordable health insurance coverage because they live in a state that has not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. It’s imperative to close this gap in coverage,…
ORNL researchers develop ‘multitasking’ AI tool to extract cancer data in record time
To better leverage cancer data for research, scientists at ORNL are developing an artificial intelligence (AI)-based natural language processing tool to improve information extraction from textual pathology reports. In a first for cancer pathology reports, the team developed a multitask convolutional neural network (CNN)—a deep learning model that learns to perform tasks, such as identifying key words in a body of text, by processing language as a two-dimensional numerical dataset.
Middle-Aged Adults Worried About Health Insurance Costs Now, Uncertain for Future
Health insurance costs weigh heavily on the minds of many middle-aged adults, and many are worried for what they’ll face in retirement or if federal health policies change, according to a new study. More than a quarter of people in their 50s and early 60s lack confidence that they’ll be able to afford health insurance in the next year, and the number goes up to nearly half when they look ahead to retirement.
Study finds some state laws linked to lower incidence of vaping
State laws that regulate e-cigarette sales and usage may lower their use in states where those laws have been implemented, according to a new observational study from the University of Iowa published this week by the journal JAMA Network Open.
ICUs Receive Higher Satisfaction Scores for End-of-life Care than Other Hospital Departments
The findings may inform care in other parts of the hospital to improve end-of-life experiences.
Medicaid Expansion Associated with Fewer Total Opioid Overdose Deaths Across the U.S.
The expansion of Medicaid coverage for low-income adults permitted by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was associated with a six percent reduction in total opioid overdose deaths nationally, according to new research from NYU Grossman School of Medicine and University of California, Davis.
Direct-to-Consumer Fertility Tests Confuse and Mislead Consumers, Penn Study Shows
Direct-to-consumer hormone-based “fertility testing” for women is viewed by consumers as both an alternative, empowering tool for family planning, and a confusing and misleading one, according to the results of a new study from Penn Medicine. Findings from the small, first-of-its-kind ethnographic study reinforce the need for consumer education around the purpose and accuracy of the tests, which have seen increasing interest in recent years due to the low cost and widespread availability. The study was published in the journal of Social Science and Medicine.
Rural-Urban Flip: How Changing ACA Rules Affected Health Insurance Premium Costs
People in rural areas of the U.S. who receive subsidies to buy health insurance in the Health Insurance Marketplaces pay less in premiums than their counterparts in urban areas, a flip that occurred in 2018 and has been widening since, according to a new analysis.
Study sheds light on differences in hospitalization-related care and outcomes for urgent cardiovascular conditions among homeless individuals
In a new retrospective study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine, a team of researchers led by Rishi Wadhera, MD, MPP, MPhil, an investigator in the Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), found that there are indeed striking disparities in in-hospital care and mortality between homeless and non-homeless adults.
The End of Antibiotics?
Less than a century after the discovery of antibiotics, the world is at risk of entering an era in which the life-saving drugs no longer work.
How Oncologists Can Ethically Navigate the “Right-to-Try” Drug Law
The 2018 federal Right to Try Act allows patients with a life-threatening illness to be treated with drugs that have not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Many in the oncology community say Right to Try strips away important regulatory protections and view the move as a risky step bound to create ethical dilemmas for physicians whose goal is to guide patients toward safe and appropriate treatment decisions. Oncology is one field at the forefront of requests for unapproved drugs. An interdisciplinary team of bioethicists, oncologists, and lawyers from Penn Medicine and other institutions penned a commentary published online this week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology to offer recommendations to help oncologists navigate this new “Right to Try” world, while maintaining their ethical obligations to patients.
New Opioid Prescription Dosages Drop 22 Percent in Penn Medicine’s New Jersey Practices Following Changes to State Law and Health Record Alerts
The total amount of opioids dispensed per new opioid prescription decreased by 22 percent in Penn Medicine outpatient practices in New Jersey after the state passed a law limiting prescriptions to a five-day supply for new opioid prescriptions. Penn Medicine implemented an electronic health record (EMR) alert, or “nudge,” to notify clinicians if that limit had been reached. The study, published online today in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, is one of the first evaluations of a state law’s impact on prescribing outcomes, and is the first report of an EMR being used to make compliance with prescribing limits easier. Importantly, after the prescribing limit and alert went into effect there was no evidence to suggest pain control worsened.
A bold restructuring of ASU’s College of Health Solutions results in growth and innovation across all measures
One year following a large-scale restructuring, Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions announces growth in enrollment, new faculty and research advancement.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine and CUNY School of Public Health Collaborate to Offer Medical Students M.D./M.P.H. Program
Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) announced an agreement today to offer Einstein medical students an opportunity to complete a five-year program resulting in a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree from Einstein and a Master’s Degree in Public Health (M.P.H.) degree from CUNY SPH.
The E-cigarette Backlash
CFR In Brief by Claire Felter. An outbreak of a lung illness linked to vaping is raising the pressure on countries to rein in the booming e-cigarette industry.