The Medical Professionalism Blog
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Recommended Reading: May 4-11
For this week’s Recommended Reading, check out several articles on stewardship of resources, including its role in organizational professionalism: In “From an Ethics of Rationing to an Ethics of Waste Avoidance,” Howard Brody argues for a stepwise strategy to eliminate unnecessary care given the limitations of comparative-effectiveness research, saying, “it is better first to eliminate [...]
Recommended Reading: April 28-May 4
For this week’s Recommended Reading, check out more coverage of Choosing Wisely® and other articles on overuse: Brad Flansbaum asks whether we are “Choosing Wisely or Vicely” on the Hospitalist Leader blog. The Wall Street Journal calls Choosing Wisely “Care That’s Just Right” American Cancer Society Medical Director Otis Brawley delivered a speech at a [...]
Recommended Reading: April 19-27
This week’s Recommended Reading focuses on new recommendations with the potential to improve stewardship of health care resources: The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System issued a proposed strategic plan for community-based approaches to improving care and lowering cost for individuals with chronic illnesses. They estimate that creating 50 to 100 voluntary [...]
Recommended Reading: April 12-19
The blogosphere continues to buzz about Choosing Wisely®. Below is a sampling of recent posts: Forbes notes that Choosing Wisely “has dominated health headlines since nine medical specialty boards recently announced their support…” David Katz, Director of the Yale Prevention Research Center, calls Choosing Wisely Good Answers for Good Questions. Michael Barry of the Informed Medical [...]
Recommended Reading: April 5-12, 2012
This Recommended Reading installment features coverage of the ABIM Foundation’s Choosing Wisely® campaign, which attracted television, radio, newspaper and blog coverage and set the Twitterverse abuzz. Enjoy! A New York Times editorial asked, “Do You Need that Test?” Former CMS head Don Berwick argues that, with this campaign, “Physicians Step to the Front in Health [...]
Recommended Reading: March 16-23
How can we address our nation’s spiraling health care costs? This week’s Recommended Reading offers several potential solutions: As Ezra Klein reports, Victor Fuchs and Ezekiel Emanuel have proposed cutting the length of medical training by 30 percent, thereby reducing physician debt and allowing space for more physicians to be trained. The Wall Street Journal [...]
Recommended Reading: March 3-8
This week’s Recommended Reading articles highlight several factors that are driving our nation’s ever-increasing health care costs: According to Ezra Klein, high prices are the main reason that U.S. health care is so much costlier than in other countries. He cites a recent International Federation of Health Plans study which shows that Americans pay more [...]
Recommended Reading: February 22 – March 2, 2012
Recent articles have focused on overuse of medical tests and procedures, particularly among older adults: Is ignorance bliss? In a New York Times op-ed, H. Gilbert Welch writes, “The truth is, the fastest way to get heart disease, autism, glaucoma, diabetes, vascular problems, osteoporosis or cancer … is to be screened for it. In other [...]
Recommended Reading – February 13-17, 2012
This week, journal articles abounded on the potential contributors to health care costs. What’s patient satisfaction, defensive medicine or treatment guidelines got to do with it? Read some of the latest studies and see what you think:
Recommended Reading – February 6-10, 2012
As the ABIM Foundation embarks on its Choosing WiselyTM campaign, it hopes to stimulate conversations about the need to use resources wisely. This week’s JAMA Viewpoint, The Harms of Screening: New Attention to an Old Concern, discusses why limitations should be set on screenings—both to prevent harm to patients and manage resources. But how ready [...]
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