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Posts Tagged ‘medical costs’

Podcast 155: What’s wrong with U.S. healthcare and what will save it?

Joe Elia • May 14th, 2012

Categories: Audio, Health care, Patient care, Policy, Uncategorized

(6 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)

Dr. Arnold Relman, longtime observer of the U.S. healthcare system and editor emeritus of the New England Journal of Medicine, proposes two major reforms: First, private insurance companies should leave the healthcare field, and second, physicians should organize into multispecialty practices. His proposals, just published in BMJ, grow out of his alarmed observation — [...]

Podcast 142: Really, why are you ordering that test?

Joe Elia • January 20th, 2012

Categories: American College of Physicians, Audio, Blood tests, Diagnosis, Health care, Testing

(3 votes, average: 2.33 out of 5)

The American College of Physicians wants to encourage high-value, cost-conscious care. And so they convened a consensus panel of physicians to list tests that they considered overused or inappropriately used in certain circumstances. One example would be the use of MRI for breast screening in normal-risk patients; another is the use of imaging studies [...]

Podcast 130: If you’re a clinician concerned about health costs, wash your hands — don’t just wring them

Joe Elia • September 16th, 2011

Categories: Audio, Hand Washing, Health care, hospital mortality, Infection Control, Intensive care, Patient care, Uncategorized

(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Health Affairs has a study in which a few simple, but rigorously followed patient-care procedures in a pediatric ICU dropped infection rates, mortality, lengths of hospital stay, and total costs. Sound too good to be true? Well, it wasn’t exactly easy, but the results were real and measurable. Listen in and see whether this [...]