The federal government unveiled data Tuesday detailing 4.4 million payments made to doctors and teaching hospitals by pharmaceutical and medical device companies. The launch of the so-called Open Payments website, mandated under a provision of the Affordable Care Act, was far from glitch-free: Some users encountered long delays and sometimes error messages trying to access its seven data tables. Also, the site didn't provide consumers with an easy-to-use lookup tool, a single place to search for a doctor's name and see all results across data files. It will take a while to dig deeply into this new trove of data, which covers the period of August to December 2013 and includes general and research payments, as well as payments to companies' physician investors.
In a social media landscape shaped by hashtags, algorithms, and viral posts, nurse leaders must decide: Will they let the narrative spiral, or can they adapt and join the conversation?
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