China has unveiled an ambitious plan to achieve universal healthcare. The plan lays out in broad strokes plans to introduce greater healthcare funding and control prices. The current system leaves out much of the population and forces the rest to pay heavy out-of-pocket expenses. Overhauling China's healthcare system has global significance, given the country's demographic heft, its frequent role as epicenter of infectious diseases, and its growing importance in health innovations.
As the country is engulfed in a financial crisis the likes of which few could have imagined, nothing has changed about healthcare. The nation had a troubled healthcare system before the credit crunch came along, and while other issues have leap-frogged to the top of the nation's attention level, they have not lessened the severity of the healthcare problem.
While hospitals and other providers have long been quick to adopt breakthrough technology in medical devices, procedures, and treatments, less attention has focused on innovations in networking and communications. This is partly because of concerns about breaches in security and patient privacy, and because healthcare until recently was a service always performed locally. But that is about to change, as IT security will eventually meet the expectations of the healthcare industry. When it does, powerful IT networks crisscrossing the globe will change the way much of healthcare is delivered.
The issue of healthcare costs usually comes up for discussion right after the economy as costs for businesses and consumers continue to climb. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association insures 102 million Americans and has networks that include 90% of the nation's providers and 80% of its hospitals. The association's board just adopted a four-point initiative aimed at containing healthcare costs and improving care, with the goals ranging from eradicating hospital infections to pushing for healthcare coverage for everyone. In this interview with the New York Times, Scott Serota, the association's president and chief executive, discusses the new goals.
Senator Barack Obama is charging that Senator John McCain would make $882 billion in "drastic cuts to Medicare to pay for his healthcare proposal." That assertion is being angrily disputed by the McCain campaign. McCain's top domestic policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said that the Democrat's latest assault on the McCain health plan capped the "worst and most sustained distortion of policy in this entire campaign."
Medicaid's growing strain on federal and state budgets is unlikely to abate over the coming decade as the cost of providing healthcare to the poor is expected to increase 7.9% annually, government actuaries have reported. Actuaries said the cost increases they expect in the coming decade are not unique to Medicaid: Costs for every form of health coverage have increased rapidly and reflect new, better, and more complex services as well as wage inflation in the medical sector. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said the analysis was a reminder that Medicaid spending is on an unsustainable path.
Many patients misunderstand the written questions American doctors have them answer before physical exams, new reports say. Two studies found that lower-than-expected literacy levels among patients and a failure to understand basic numerical measurements hurt the validity of the questionnaire results. A third study, however, found promise in using computer programs to "speak" the questions to patients.
Rhode Island is proposing an overhaul of its Medicaid program that Gov. Don Carcieri says will save the state millions of dollars, but the move could risk leaving the poor and elderly with fewer services should the plan not work. Instead of having the federal government reimburse Rhode Island more than 50 cents for every dollar the state spends to care for the needy, disabled, and elderly, Carcieri wants the state to get its federal money in a lump sum. But Democrats in Congress are deeply skeptical of the plan.
Standardizing the look of medication labels could significantly decrease costly and potentially harmful medication errors, according to a study by anesthesiologists at Penn State Hershey. Researchers tested a simple color-coding system in simulated emergency room situations and said a universal system could help prevent some of the 1.5 million adverse drug reactions each year caused by medication mistakes. These mistakes cost the healthcare industry an estimated $3.5 billion annually.
During Top Leadership Teams event last week, this was the phrase that Jim Molpus, Editor-in-Chief of HealthLeaders Media used in jest to introduce a panel Ted Etyan, MD, was on along with Jay Srini, Chief Innovation Officer of UPMC Insurance Services, and Jeffrey Balser, MD, Ph.D., who was just named Dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. In his blog, Etyan notes that the "boutique" he was representing was a combination of his previous employer, Group Health Permanente, and his current employer, The Permanente Federation.
